


could you begin our strange love?

by superheroau



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, F/F, Fluff, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, good vibes only
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22315717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superheroau/pseuds/superheroau
Summary: as she clings to her hard-fought spot on the corporate ladder, sooyoung realizes her feelings for her nice manager might be a little more than just professional admiration.
Relationships: Park Sooyoung | Joy/Son Seungwan | Wendy
Comments: 59
Kudos: 334





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> back at it again with more wenjoy, inspired heavily by the wonderful korean drama misaeng! watch it for lots of nice life lessons and slice-of-life goodness.
> 
> the korean corporate/office hierarchy is quite strict, and you usually refer to someone by honorific rather than name if they’re above you in rank. these honorifics basically translate to a bunch of different levels of “manager”, so i’ve done my best to make clear who’s who without needing to know much about that- hopefully it's not too confusing, but feel free to ask about it. enjoy, and don't forget to leave kudos and comments! 
> 
> [[crossposted on AFF](https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1429193/)]

“park sooyoung-ssi.”

fingers snap lightly somewhere near sooyoung’s face. trying to get her attention.

“hello? ‘scuse me- ” another snap. “come on…”

it’s been one week since park sooyoung joined the SM Group, one of korea’s most renowned international trading companies, as a proud full-time employee. 

one week since she received her glossy white ID card, embossed with an awkward photo of her on the front, and began to tote it around like a badge of honor.

she is now ending that week the most drunk that she’s been in months. 

enough that she sways lightly where she stands, leaning heavily into someone warm and solid at her side for balance, with one arm wrapped around slim shoulders.

she’s not quite sure who the shoulders belong to. opening her eyes to check feels far too much to ask of herself. on top of that, her head seems to have become too light for her body, like it’s now stuffed with cotton balls rather than brain matter, and a flush is rising hot and high in her cheeks. 

she would probably be quite embarrassed about it, if it weren’t for how some of her coworkers seem to be in even worse condition.

“park sooyoung-ssi,” the voice tries for a second time. the weight supporting her staggers slightly. “why won’t- can you tell me where you live?”

ah. sooyoung does know this voice. knows who it is that’s keeping her upright.

her head lolls, cheek mashing up against the top of seungwan’s head- because those prodding, flustered words can belong to none other than one of her team’s deputy managers, son seungwan.

who happens to be the absolute best fellow employee she knows. 

and the smallest.

“daerinim. son-daerinim.” she giggles, the sound thick and already bogged down with sleep. “why are you so little?”

someone slurs a suggestion from nearby, sounding a little like _jus’ take her to yours or somethin’._ the voice is hard to distinguish from the low mumbles of tipsy businessmen surrounding them.

this was only supposed to be a casual gathering of their own team, but they had ended up crossing paths with a gaggle of other deputy managers hitting up the same restaurant. everyone had proceeded to merge into one merrily drunken group, egging each other on. a perfect recipe for disintegrating into a mess.

seungwan seems to interpret the message perfectly, at least, with the sort of quickness one can only develop from experience.

“the two of us will be off, then,” she says, and sooyoung forces her eyes open just enough to catch her manager bobbing her head to their red-faced audience, bidding them a polite farewell.

then the arm around her waist- since when was there an arm around her waist?- tugs her in the direction of the door, and they both totter their way out into the night.

  
  


when sooyoung wakes next, it’s to the fading echo of a doorbell.

murmuring voices filter quietly through the walls while she rubs at her eyes, sitting up in bed with a strangled groan as the room spins at the motion. she’s relieved to find her head miraculously feels okay, but a faint, dull throb still radiates from it, making everything uncomfortable, and what little remains of yesterday’s makeup feels grossly caked onto her face. not a great start to her morning.

she’s also not liking her memories of the previous night, which have started making their way back into her mind one by agonizing one.

“park sooyoung-ssi?”

sooyoung yelps, freezing in place as the door to the clean, unfamiliar room swings open.

“ah.” son seungwan pushes the bridge of her glasses up her nose. “so you’re up after all.”

“d-daerinim? what…” a cold burst of horror explodes in sooyoung’s chest as she brings a hand up to her hair, frantically patting it down as best she can. no doubt, it looks abjectly terrible. “what happened?”

“oh, you were very drunk last night. passed out.” seungwan shrugs. “nobody knew where you lived, and i lived close by, so...”

fuck. _fuck._ she’s literally been a proper employee for _seven days_ and she’s already humiliated herself in front of her superior. this is the worst thing that could have possibly happened.

mercifully, seungwan seems to be taking it all in stride.

seeing her like this, in a faded university tee and sweats, is almost unsettling. for months, the image of son seungwan in sooyoung’s head has only ever worn slacks, and office-appropriate dress shirts and blouses.

“i’ve got your jacket, by the way. so don’t worry about that.” seungwan motions with her head towards whatever lies outside the room. “actually, the haejangguk i ordered just got here, if you’d like...”

damn it, she’s even bought hangover-soothing stew. sooyoung wilts. getting a thorough verbal thrashing for being irresponsible would almost have been better than this.

she’s supposed to be proving her independence now that she has this job. her self-sufficiency, her _competence._ being cared for by one of her bosses like some kind of sick schoolgirl doesn’t exactly give off a reliable impression.

but the scent of stew now wafting into the room is tempting. very, very tempting.

“i’d love some,” she agrees weakly.

seungwan looks pleased at the acceptance, leading sooyoung out to a small table set for two once she’s freshened up enough to look like a normal, presentable human again. there’s a steaming, delicious-smelling bowl on one end, and a laptop on the other.

“eat as much as you like,” she invites. “i’ve got some things to do, so don’t mind me. you can go whenever you have to.”

“thank you,” sooyoung mumbles, sitting down obediently. she doesn’t look around, doesn’t try to soak in the apartment around her. a distracted glance tells her it’s small but cozy, populated with little personal effects on most available surfaces, and that’s all she should know. no use intruding more than she already has by prying into seungwan’s business.

while eating, she tries to seem as polite and cultured as she can, but her hungry and hungover body soon kicks her logical mind firmly out of the driver’s seat. in no time, she’s digging into the hearty mix of meat and vegetables, nearly wolfing it down while seungwan taps away on her keyboard.

in between spoonfuls, sooyoung pauses for a second to gather herself. and to breathe.

“thank you, daerinim. you didn’t have to do all of this.” _didn’t have to sleep on the couch for me_ , she adds silently. _didn’t have to get me breakfast, or treat me so well at all._

the tapping across from her stops. 

seungwan peers at her over the screen of her laptop, the bright white on her monitor reflected in her glasses.

“sure i did,” she counters. “how could i live with myself if i let something happen to our best newbie?”

sooyoung’s spoon clinks against her bowl as she sets it down.

“did you say ‘best’?”

seungwan grows serious. her features go diplomatically blank, her hands steepling in front of her to create a spot she can neatly rest her chin.

“can i speak honestly with you?”

sooyoung can feel herself paling already.

“yes- of course. sure.”

“good.”

seungwan smiles, then. it’s not full-sized, a rare kind usually reserved for having won a big contract or emerging from an hour-long phone call with an annoying client, but a smile nonetheless. a minute quirking up of her lips that manages to put sooyoung’s pounding heart at ease.

“you should have more confidence in yourself, park sooyoung-ssi. once the internships were up, half the teams in the company were fighting over who got to have you.”

well.

that’s definitely a confidence booster if she’s ever heard one. but for some reason, sooyoung can only manage to focus on one part of the reassurance.

“daerinim.” 

she hesitates. the question seems silly, if she thinks about it.

and yet...

“did you fight for me, too?”

at that, seungwan’s smile widens into something that’s finally visible to the naked eye. yet somehow, it only makes her more mysterious. more unreadable.

“no comment,” she finally says. “hiring details are confidential.”

“ah.”

“now finish your breakfast.”

  
  


trading is a vast and constantly shifting business, full of changing variables affected by anything from global politics to the weather. the companies that handle it often have to worry about a little bit of everything, so the SM Group has evolved into a machine with many moving parts, full of bustling interaction between teams and staff across the company building’s many floors.

that’s part of the appeal of places like this: being part of something bigger. making sure people are provided with products all over the world, thanks to the efforts of you and your group. 

stretching out as she stands briefly from her chair, sooyoung takes in the landscape of cubicles sprawled out before her, spanning the domains of all the sales and resource-related teams.

this is her home, the SM building’s 14th floor. it’s not the most beautiful view out there, but it’s what she’s got. and it’s at least supposed to feel satisfying to look at. 

the way she can’t even have that little pleasure for herself is so infuriating.

when she’d gotten the news she was hired into the same team she’d interned with, sales team two, she had been relieved. there would be no tension, no extra awkward adjustment period. she was on her way to being smoothly, properly accepted by her group. at least, that was what she had thought.

things had went differently once she’d stepped into the SM building as a full-timer.

it had taken sooyoung a whole damn lot to get here, to this prestigious corporate job. she had spent weeks as a hardworking intern straight out of college, going through the company’s motions to weed out all but the best new hires. final presentations had been in front of the entire structure of power- from team leaders all the way to the company’s executive vice president. she had damn near teared up when they had texted her that she’d been hired.

so why the hell has she still been stuck doing nothing after finally getting her foot in the door?

it’s been nothing but busy work for weeks now. correcting typos in reports, filling in spreadsheets with others’ data. and that’s not even mentioning the _errands._

_park sooyoung-ssi, could you get me some coffee? park sooyoung-ssi, we need some food to get through this meeting. jjajangmyeon would be best, get it from that place we like, you know the one. ah, hey, could you get me some cigarettes..._

it’s enough to drive her crazy. there might still be room to learn as a newbie, but this is really just ridiculous. she reviewed all the important basics during initial training after she was properly hired, and she knows she’s more than ready to handle actual work.

as an intern, it had been easy to pass it off as the team being cautious of her merits, not sure how to deal with someone who wasn’t even an actual employee yet. she had had other things to focus on, anyway. trying to make connections, juggling both the team’s work and the tasks the company kept giving interns to evaluate their performance.

now there’s just… nothing.

being bad at her job would suck, sure, but being ignored when she knows she has a passable amount of skill feels even worse.

the least that team leader choi and deputy manager kim could do is not treat her like the _maid_ just because they’re a couple of ranks up. 

sooyoung does have one consolation, which is that she gets to keep working with son seungwan. or son-daerinim, as sooyoung normally has to call her, because seniority and honorifics are king here in the office. seungwan is the closest of her superiors in rank, age, and even distance. they’re next door neighbors, their cubicles sat side by side.

she’s actually a pretty interesting person. at a glance she seems unassuming, a tiny, bookish woman with glasses who has to look up to meet even sooyoung’s eyes, but in reality, she’s all business. somehow she always manages to stay graciously stone-faced, features serenely, politely blank under almost any possible circumstance. 

despite how she comes off as a bit of a nerdy workaholic type, she’s surprisingly pleasant to be around, not above cracking jokes or chewing on office gossip. her voice is warm and steady, never tainted by underhanded hostility. 

to everyone in their often aggravated section of the office, her diligent presence is somewhat of a soothing balm. like a gentle, wordless encouragement to keep chipping away at work.

that might just be a personal thought on sooyoung’s part, though, considering seungwan is by far the nicest of any of her coworkers. 

where others tend to meet her with indifference or even a strange sort of dismay, seungwan looks after her. answers her questions and surveys her work with the same reliable honesty she did when sooyoung was an intern. she never asks for anything in return, either, never uses it as leverage for favors.

her quiet kindness is very much appreciated. 

perhaps it’s the reason that she’s _seungwan_ in sooyoung’s head, rather than something more impersonal. why she absently thinks of her as _her_ manager when there’s more than one of those on the team.

being so close by, sooyoung gets a front-row seat to all of seungwan’s conversations with clients. a childhood spent in canada granted her with english smooth enough to sound like her native language, so she’s usually rattling off chains of business terms over the phone with a confidence that frankly, sooyoung is a little envious of.

she’s just so _cool._ formidably competent, and so very collected, while sooyoung has already lost count of how many times she’s nearly snapped when faced with their stubborn superiors.

“ _hello_ ,” comes perfect, accent-free english from a few feet away, like her manager can just tell that she’s thinking of her, “ _this is seungwan son from SM Group’s sales team two, i’m just following up on the location booked for the meeting at 1 p.m. tomorrow…_ ”

what she wouldn’t give for the secret to that endless well of composure.

  
  


not being given anything important to do can have unfortunate side effects on an employee. listlessness, agitation, a tendency to be moody. 

worst of all, though, is not knowing what the hell is going on in your own small team.

which is why sooyoung is quite surprised to see seungwan slouched lifelessly at her desk when she comes in one morning. normally the older woman looks the picture of refreshed and focused, even at terribly early hours.

today, her eyes are red-rimmed, the skin around them dark with exhaustion as she practically glares at her computer screen, and her eyebrows are bunched up into a long-suffering frown.

it’s not a very motivating sight to start her workday off. not a pretty one, either, even though seungwan is usually- well, not bad-looking at all, in sooyoung’s personal opinion.

obviously something has happened. probably to do with some setup or other for their upcoming project. sooyoung feels a childishly intense rage surge through her at the thought of still being kept in the dark about it, and quickly reins back the impulse to stomp a foot in displeasure. 

“daerinim,” she starts instead, but stops. maybe it would be inappropriate to question a senior’s health so directly.

“sooyoung-ssi.” seungwan’s neutral expression is stretched a little too thin to feel genuine, although hints of the usual calm she exudes still manage to weakly shine through. “good morning.”

“were you here overnight?”

“yeah, second time this week. finance team’s been on our asses to produce something they could approve to get this project going, and our documents wouldn’t revise themselves.” seungwan shrugs helplessly. “had to be done. still some more stuff left, but it’s wrapping up, just about..”

“ah.” sooyoung hesitates. more than anything, she wants to help, and yet… an inexperienced rookie getting involved could do seungwan more harm than good.

“i hope you’ve been doing better than me.” seungwan’s words sound as humored as they can be, under the circumstances. “can’t be hard, right?”

sooyoung forces out a laugh. “i suppose not.”

after that, the day passes in a vague blur. sooyoung gets her teammates coffee. fetches papers from different teams, from their team’s own password-locked locker, from the files shoved into cabinets around their section of the office. shreds a few other papers. makes copies.

_ugh._

when a document is dropped unceremoniously onto her desk by one of her passing acquaintances in the resource department, she’s at a point where she welcomes the _slap_ of the paper’s impact, how it jolts her out of her daze.

as for what she does next, her instinct, worn into her brain over the weeks like a well-trodden path, is to lean back in her wheeled chair just enough that she doesn’t start rolling. it’s like her own little game. seeing if she can catch seungwan’s eye from one cubicle over with the least possible effort.

as she does so, though, she’s stopped by the sight of her neighbor doing almost the same thing- except with her eyes closed. her breathing is slow as her body hangs slightly off the back of her chair, chest rising and falling with unhurried regularity.

it seems that she might be asleep.

sooyoung falters. how could she have been so inconsiderate? seungwan has been looking visibly drained all day. she might not be in the condition to appreciate this documentation on cargo shipments, even if she was the one who had requested it in the first place.

she sits there for a while, frozen in her uncertain deliberation. 

her face is starting to glaze over by the time she registers that she’s being watched.

the sheets of paper in her hand nearly drop from her startled grip. thankfully, she manages to clutch at them right at the last second, and they don’t end up scattering all over the floor.

dark eyes squint up with amusement as seungwan straightens in her chair, swiveling to face her.

“you staring at me like that makes me feel a bit funny, sooyoung-ssi.”

“huh?”

seungwan only chuckles to herself, sounding faintly tickled by her little joke. because that’s definitely what that was. a joke.

“i didn’t want to disturb you or anything,” sooyoung is quick to continue, “just wanted to give you that report you asked for,” and seungwan nods good-naturedly, motioning for sooyoung to hand it over.

“i can’t actually get myself to fall asleep on the job,” she informs, sifting through the sheaf of papers. “it’s never really worked, don’t know why… but you don’t have to stand around until my eyes open. just give me a tap if you need me, and i’ll be with you in a second.”

“ah.” sooyoung nods in dutiful understanding. “i see. i’ll remember that.”

“then we’re good.”

“oh- daerinim, by the way...”

“hm?”

“you shouldn’t lean back like that for a long time. your neck will be sore.” sooyoung realizes too late that she’s basically telling a superior what to do, but there’s no going back now that it’s out there. “you should invest in a neck pillow,” she concludes, forcing her lips up into an awkward attempt at a placating smile.

seungwan seems to pay her face no attention while she mulls over the idea. her brow furrows like she’s taking it quite seriously.

“good thinking,” she finally says, approving, though her expression quickly turns wry. “i’ll probably be needing it a lot,” she muses, and turns back to face her desk.

sooyoung had to work overnight once herself, when internship activities had been hitting full swing. there had been something surreal about being the only human being on the whole floor while the city chugged slowly away far below, made extra strange by her lack of sleep and the pressing urgency of impending due dates.

she thinks about seungwan alone and surrounded by darkness, working even more late nights. her small form sat wearily at her desk, the sole circle of light in the big and empty maze of cubicles. 

something in her flutters strangely at the thought that one day, she could end up keeping her company.

  
  


there’s a saying sooyoung’s heard before: that humans thrive on work. that they need it. they _need_ work.

it’s a bold statement, if not a controversial one. 

personally, she had never thought she would end up feeling that need as acutely as she does now.

if you had asked her back in college, she probably would have scoffed at the thought of wanting any more work than what she was given. without anything meaningful to focus on, though, the office turns into its own circle of hell. the gray of the carpets and cubicles wear dull and stifling on her mind, her too-clean desk and the inane, useless pages open on her computer screen taunting her.

the last few days, sooyoung has been idly dragging out time at the SM building as long as she can, for lack of anything better to do. but tonight being a friday night has much of the office eager to leave right on time, and the itch of it is contagious. the elevator she manages to catch after gathering her stuff up in a hurry is already packed with people.

no doubt, she thinks to herself ruefully, they’ve all gotten a lot more done today than she has.

she stands indifferently through a few extra stops at other floors before getting down to the ground floor with most of the others. shuffles slowly through the glittering lobby, past counters and vending machines and a waiting area or two.

it just feels like she should be doing more _._ that she should stay longer, accomplish _something._

she’s just stepped into the cool fall air outside when she’s distracted by the sound of an approaching laugh, turning her head curiously towards it.

her eyes first catch on a lankily built woman who looks the epitome of professional, at least from the neck down. the childish grin on her round face is a sharp contrast to the rest of her, all ramrod straight posture and pristinely crisp clothes. 

that’s... seulgi. kang seulgi. one of the members of the steel team. sooyoung’s seen her chatting with seungwan many times, in the break room and while exchanging papers in the office.

she definitely recognizes the person who comes next as bae joohyun, a rather famous deputy manager in risk assessment. seeing her up relatively close for the first time, it’s very clear why there have always been whispers of hushed awe about the intimidatingly perfect “aphrodite” on the 15th floor, and not just about her extremely successful track record.

most interesting of all- right by bae joohyun’s side, successfully capturing the interest of both her companions, is seungwan.

 _her_ seungwan. sales team two deputy manager, son seungwan.

she’s… smiling. gesturing, animatedly at that, seemingly caught up in narrating some hilarious story, complete with theatrical facial expressions sooyoung wouldn’t have even thought her capable of until this very moment.

the trio don’t notice sooyoung as they stroll past her, evidently in good spirits. the sight causes a pang of something right where her heart is, an acute constricting feeling that leaves her stuck staring at the three women until they disappear from view.

it takes a while for the gravity of it to really sink in.

sooyoung is halfway down the stairs of the subway station when she realizes that what’s still surging up within her is jealousy.

  
  


the thought of seungwan having an actual social life nags at sooyoung a lot more than she expects. why, she doesn’t know. it’s not like it’s any of her business, or anything, yet the image of her manager happily chatting up people who had to be nothing less than her _friends_ refuses to leave her mind. 

maybe… just maybe, it’s because she wants to be one of them. 

it’s a possibility.

but perhaps the memory is also lingering a little too strongly. interfering with her focus. 

it would be convenient to blame it for why things have abruptly blown up in her face.

she had been maybe a tad too excited when her team had passed a task down to her that was actually meaningful. in the grand scheme of things, it isn’t anything earth-shattering, but a write-up on their new project’s planned measures for moving goods- certainly a huge step up from what she’s used to.

that step now feels more like a cliff’s edge that she’s dug her nails into, hoping that she doesn’t fall.

the papers she’d printed out just this morning slap down onto the desk in front of her, unpleasant and aggressive enough that she winces. 

“what is this?” 

“the report that you asked for, bujangnim.”

“what a lazy bunch, passing it to the damn newbie… park sooyoung.” mr. chae, sales division leader and professional _asshole_ , leans forward with a thinly veiled sneer. “do you know what i hate most in the workplace?”

“no...”

“when a new hire thinks that they can stop _trying_ , just because they’ve gotten into the company.”

sooyoung recoils at that, unable to hide how the words make her bristle.

“i spent all day putting this together yesterday,” she protests, unthinking, “i don’t think that- ”

“you’ve barely been here more than a month.” mr. chae’s expression only grows stormier. “what do you think, exactly? that you have the right to raise your voice at me? or to claim that your work is perfect? at your age, you should already know that time doesn’t equal quality.”

there it is. the line of seniority, drawn starkly in front of her- and mr. chae practically daring her to overstep it. because he knows how he’ll be able to act, what he can justify pressuring her team even harder with, if she’s pissed enough to stray from her place.

fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, sooyoung is very much aware of the same things.

and as much as it stings, maybe he has a little bit of a point.

“no… no. thank you- ” she inhales. stops herself from forcing out the words through gritted teeth and earning an even worse scolding. “thank you for your feedback, sir,” she finally manages, subdued.

nothing comes back to her in response, other than a snort from under his breath as she turns and leaves.

she does her best to look unaffected, taking steady and even steps rather than storming off, but her body still burns hot with ill-repressed anger, a feeling like she’s boiling inside. like a lobster in a pot. steam may as well be coming out of her ears by the time she drops herself heavily into her chair.

but the company and its many ventures won’t stop just for her. there isn’t even enough time for her to run off to one of the outdoor patios or the roof to calm down. she’s got to attend back-to-back meetings for the team’s new project, starting in ten minutes, although her role in them is… passing out pre-meeting handouts, mostly. or serving as the note-taker. 

it’s still better than nothing.

(very nice of seungwan to always offer her the job.)

first off is a session with their vendor’s representatives. the business is a longtime company partner, and communication before the project’s setup had been smooth, so it all ends up going without issue. there’s only small, nitpicky details left to worry about, which these projects unfortunately tend to have in abundance, but nothing too concerning. 

seungwan fields their questions in her impeccable english, while sooyoung diligently types out every word exchanged. 

the arrangement is familiar. soothing in how routinely tedious it is.

then it’s time for the sales team two meeting. this is what sooyoung had been dreading, even though it’s probably the shortest and least important meeting she’s had to sit in all week. 

when mr. choi and mr. kim get to the conference room, she just _knows_ that they know. that somebody told them. while she stands up courteously at their arrival, greeting them with the appropriate _gwajangnim_ and _daerinim_ , there’s something in their eyes as they pass her by, a sort of mix of contempt and dismay.

it makes it very hard to resist the urge to scowl back at them.

so what if their division head is a pig? it’s not her fucking fault.

nobody brings it up as they discuss the team’s current agendas. the new project, any last wrapping up or maintenance measures that the team’s others might need. paperwork that still needs submitting. paperwork that’s yet to be filled out. 

but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t there, hovering over sooyoung’s head.

once the meeting begins to wind down, she’s just closed her laptop and steeled herself to make a run for it. then she hears something that makes her stomach drop.

“ah, park sooyoung-ssi,” seungwan says, stopping her in her tracks, “could you stay here for a minute?” 

given the wave of apprehension that crashes headlong into sooyoung at the words, she might as well have asked _could you put your head through this noose?_

their coworkers seem to catch on to the feeling, a muted satisfaction about them as they turn to leave, and sooyoung can practically hear them saying what’s written plainly on their faces.

_go on and give the newbie her scolding, son-daeri._

she lingers behind just as requested, shifting nervously from foot to foot. tries to ignore how the glass walls of the conference room begin to feel more like a cage.

“did i do something wrong?” she asks once they’ve left, voice small. she hates how easily the words spill out, how her head is already beginning to bow in preemptive apology. “i’m sorry i got yelled at by the division head, i don’t want our team in trouble- ”

“it’s not about that.” 

seungwan adjusts the papers in front of her. gathers them into a neat stack, and pats the edges down on the table to align them perfectly. 

finally, she looks up.

despite the expected blankness of her features, her gaze is kind. it wouldn’t even be a stretch to label it just a little bit fond.

“i was wondering,” she says, “if you’d like to go for a drink later.”

  
  


going out for drinks is workplace custom when you want to talk to someone. even for one-on-one matters, it’s not uncommon for a senior to invite you out somewhere, or offer to share a beer with you.

it’s not the drinking part that’s got sooyoung antsy.

true to her word, seungwan comes to get her that evening, right on time. sooyoung obediently follows her out of the office, holding back all the questions that bubble up against her lips.

the space between them is stuffed full with awkward silence. barely anything is said as they step out of the elevators and into the lobby, heading down the steps in a well-trodden, near automatic path. it all only serves to put sooyoung even more on edge as she trails just behind seungwan, unsure of where her manager is taking her.

their destination ends up being the decidedly not suspicious fried chicken place close by- sooyoung recalls passing it often on her way to the subway station while heading home. it’s the perfect kind of greasy, delicious food to counterbalance the edge of soju.

she tries to offer herself some comfort with a reminder that this- this is just what she had wanted. a chance to snag a senior she can be comfortable with, be close to. a respectable role model to have at her side.

if she’s lucky, seungwan could even become someone she could confide in, in the future.

despite her wandering, hopeful thoughts, by the time their food and drinks arrive, sooyoung can’t help but wonder if they’ll spend the whole evening not speaking.

well. whether they talk or not, she should probably still play the responsible, thoughtful junior as best she can. taking the initiative, she picks up the green-tinted bottle, carefully pouring them their first shots of the night.

seungwan looks oddly put off by the sight of the little shot glass, eyes fixed on it blankly for a few seconds in a way that makes sooyoung start to second guess her decision. she snaps out of it quickly, though, swiping it up and tossing the whole thing back in the blink of an eye.

the usual calm behind her eyes finally settles back into place once she sets down her now empty glass.

“anything on your mind lately?” she asks, face pinching in a wince from the alcohol, and sooyoung hesitates.

there are actually a lot of things on her mind lately, most of which are very pointed, and would certainly piss off her higher-ups. probably not wise to spill them to someone above her in the ranks, even one of the “good” ones.

but it doesn’t take an expert to figure any of that out.

why would seungwan ask a question she already knows the answer to?

“you ask me that a lot,” sooyoung remarks, deciding to make her own uncertain push back. “how i’m doing.”

“oh. i suppose it’s because i’m… interested in you? you always caught my attention, since you’re very good at what you do.” seungwan’s head tilts as she reconsiders her words. “how about we just say that i like you, sooyoung-ssi? that’s simpler.”

“oh.” 

sooyoung isn’t quite sure what she should say to that, but it does cause a blush to creep over her face, something that doesn’t go unnoticed.

“if that sounded weird,” seungwan adds belatedly, “i can take it back.”

“no!” she blurts with equal haste. “i was- i was just curious, that’s all. it’s fine.” she fidgets in her seat, feeling too thrown off to do much else. “thank you for saying so… you take really good care of me if i need it, daerinim,” she admits truthfully. “i don’t think i worry for much of anything.”

the praise seems to make seungwan equally self-conscious, her features scrunching up sheepishly as she reaches out to sift through their food. speaking of which, the plate of chicken looks delicious, crispy and glazed perfectly with sauce and a scattering of sesame seeds.

sooyoung’s stomach growls loudly at the sight, impatient to get to dinner. though her eyes flit up to seungwan’s face in embarrassment, automatically scanning her expression for any sign of judgement, there’s nothing of the sort.

instead, she’s met with another one of those inexplicably exciting smiles.

“eat well, sooyoung-ssi,” seungwan tells her. a piece of chicken drops from her chopsticks onto sooyoung’s plate. then another.

“thank you,” sooyoung murmurs appreciatively.

this time, the words come easier than anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh yeah- i'm kind of on these now. who knows much i'll check on them, but feel free to chat and send even more comments here too.
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/superheroau_twt) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/superheroau)


	2. Chapter 2

when sooyoung had taken this position, she had anticipated her liver would not thank her for it.

in the evenings, most of the restaurants near the office are frequented by cubicle dwellers in varying stages of intoxication. sharing a drink with your circle after work is part of the culture, after all. it’s fun, distracts you from the pressures of your job. and it’s definitely an improvement over drinking alone.

in accordance with this tradition, sooyoung’s coworkers had invited her out a respectable amount when she was an intern. she’d even been lucky enough to get one last invite afterwards, when her first week as a full-timer had passed.

unfortunately, it soon became clear that they would rather haunt the local eateries without her. coming to terms with the cold shoulder had stung at first, but she doesn’t think about it as often now- she’s found some perfectly fine company in their place. lately she’s been sharing modest nights out with seungwan instead, chatting idly over drinks and cheap but delicious meals. 

it does beat hanging out with the boys’ club.

sooyoung had been the only female hire this year. her cohort of fellow former interns are a rare bunch, in that they’re all actually pretty nice, but they’re just- they’re guys. it’s not the same. plus, they’re all on different teams, and just as new to things as she is. she can’t click with dongyoung the same way. can’t ask youngho for the kind of guidance seungwan has to offer.

her budding bond with her manager can even count as an advantage, in a business sense. networking is everything, as they say, and such a connection is undeniably very valuable for a rookie like herself.

maybe it’s petty to completely avoid her other coworkers in favor of the only one who will pay attention to her. but with such firm and solid reasoning backing her up, sooyoung sees no reason to question her decision.

this is the new face of her weeknights out: serious without being severe, framed by dark brown-black hair that ends just above slim shoulders. strands of fringe falling over the forehead with just the right kind of messiness to look perfectly, naturally put-together. 

the glasses are gone tonight, tucked away into a small, navy blue case that sits in seungwan’s bag. the steam of hot food tends to fog them up, and as sooyoung has recently learned, seungwan’s vision is 20/20- she won’t be blind without them. they’re just meant to be preventative, for avoiding eye strain from all the screens and small print at work.

 _but they look cute, don’t they_ , seungwan had added playfully. _i’m never in a hurry to take them off anymore._

she’s right about that. even when sooyoung makes a conscious effort to consider it, pushing away the urge to say yes born purely from survival instinct, she can’t help but agree.

they do look pretty cute.

“i just feel like i don’t have time to breathe,” she sighs, in the middle of her latest confession. seungwan watches her from across their table with customary thoughtfulness, slurping up another spoonful of her warm tofu stew. “i get home and wash up, look at my phone for one second, and it’s midnight.”

seungwan nods in understanding. “i’m the same,” she agrees. “you get used to it, though. you’ll be managing your time and working around all that in no time.”

“son-daerinim,” sooyoung says, looking at her seriously, “tell me the secret to your success.”

“who, me?” there’s that modesty again. the sort that makes seungwan wriggle around in her seat, features twitching like they can’t commit to whether they should look proud or humble. “i don’t know how _successful_ i’d call myself…”

“just- senior to junior,” sooyoung insists. “tell me your best piece of advice.”

“it’s not much,” seungwan says, quickly relenting. “i just stick to my guns. worry about what i can actually control, instead of what i can’t. it helps keep my head clear.”

sooyoung bobs her head attentively. “i see.”

“like- i don’t know, all _this_ , for example,” seungwan continues, waving a hand vaguely. “workplace conflict. it sucks, obviously. but spending all your effort trying to get people like that, older guys who have worked here for a long time, to change quickly? that’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“right…”

“you kind of get it, right?” her manager pauses, choosing her next words carefully. “they’ll settle down, eventually. things won’t be so strict anymore. and in the meantime, you can keep yourself sane in other ways. choose your battles wisely. stick with the people who really see you.” 

“you might be stuck with me for a while, then.”

seungwan’s eyes widen.

sooyoung absolutely swears that she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. 

it’s cringeworthy. the sort of thing one would only let slip in the middle of a friendship growing excitingly fast. but once the initial shock passes, seungwan sounds quite pleased to have heard it.

“i hope you know you’ve got a friend at work, sooyoung-ssi,” she hums, merrily digging her spoon back into her dinner. 

“yes, ma’am…”

sooyoung feels a part of her wither with embarrassment as they move on. she should probably consider herself lucky, though. 

at least seungwan isn’t the type who would tease her for it.

  
  


many trading companies have started to settle into niches, specializing in moving one type of product out around the world. it’s a sign of the times, of modernization, and in such a competitive sphere, focusing on one thing and doing a better job at it than anyone else is a very effective way to keep yourself afloat. 

it’s hard for sooyoung to say whether she’s lucky or unlucky to be working with one of the few remaining jacks of all trades- those who still take on what can seem like too many different things at once.

even her own small team has a host of diverse projects, some old, some ongoing, handling anything from condoms to used cars- all with a profitable but risky contract for oil shipments balanced precariously on top. it’s enough to give anyone a headache just imagining it, let alone actually working with it.

sooyoung sort of hates how it tricks her into respecting her higher-ups when they don’t exactly respect _her_ , but this is damn hard work. credit should be given where credit’s due. that’s the honest way to handle it, and she would like to keep believing that honesty is one of her enduring virtues. 

there have been issues with the air conditioning on their floor for the last few days. today has been overcast and particularly muggy, weak breeze struggling its way in through open windows while the room grows stuffier by the hour. 

absently noting the building warmth against her skin, sooyoung starts going through the motions to put her hair up, only for the practiced gesture to be cut short by a soft _snap._

as the office continues to bustle around her, a cell phone buzzing nearby, sooyoung stares down flatly at the now broken hair tie lying on her desk.

sometimes it really is the little things, in a bad way. like this simple, mundane misfortune is the tiny straw that will finally break her back.

“park sooyoung-ssi,” mr. choi calls, and sooyoung heaves herself out of the disgruntled thought, scampering over to his desk. “finance division needs those documents our malaysia vendor’s rep handed off yesterday.”

“wait,” sooyoung starts with a frown, “gwajangnim, i already faxed them over earlier- ”

“change of plans,” her team leader sighs. “they’re asking for the original copies now. drop them at kwon-gwajang’s desk at the finance division, and ask her if they can get their shit together and process our paperwork faster. i trust you know where to go?” he adds, voice deliberate.

a familiar irritation starts to itch in sooyoung at the words- to think she’d even hoped she might avoid it today.

seriously, she isn’t _stupid._ of course she knows where the office is. finance division is 15th floor, just one up from the sales division. not exactly easy to miss, and with it being home to the company’s supreme gatekeepers, finance and risk assessment, it’d be a miracle if she hadn’t heard any of the muttered curses of the 15th floor that floated around with every new project.

“i do,” she agrees. “i’ll take them.” thankfully, her tone comes out just demure enough that mr. choi nods and lets her go.

sooyoung takes the stairs up. it’s just one floor, and besides, there’s no sense in missing out on a chance to move when she’s sitting around half the day anyway. once she arrives, it turns out that one miss kwon boa, senior member of the finance team, is too embroiled in a terse phone conversation in japanese to talk to her. with a vague wave of her hand, she motions for sooyoung to stand aside and wait. 

sooyoung’s english is good, her chinese is serviceable, but she’s never gotten past basic japanese. having no idea what’s going on, she does the safe thing: what she’s told. leans against the empty wall opposite the finance division’s cubicles, and turns her attention politely elsewhere.

not too far away, there’s a little sign hanging from the ceiling labeled _risk assessment_ \- evidently that section of the office is their territory. sooyoung lets her eyes wander over the placards attached to the cubicles there, neatly printed with employees’ names and positions. deputy manager jung yunho. deputy manager bae joohyun- 

hold on. that desk is occupied.

and said occupant is looking straight at her.

sooyoung holds the mysterious gaze, feeling for all the world like a deer trapped in headlights. why is she staring at her like that? she’s certain she hasn’t done anything wrong today. in fact, the two of them have never even met each other properly. the few meetings with risk assessment sooyoung has sat in on have never involved her.

but as sooyoung watches, baffled, bae joohyun raises a small, pale hand in a tentative wave.

never one to ignore a friendly gesture, sooyoung waves back. though the motion is equally uncertain, it seems to satisfy joohyun, whose expression becomes thoughtful as she turns back to her work.

had she recognized her somehow? surely that’s the only reason she’d make such a move. but to recognize sooyoung, she had to have heard about her from somewhere first… 

seungwan, perhaps?

sooyoung is too slow to stop the idea from taking root. it unfolds perfectly in her mind’s eye- seungwan and joohyun and seulgi gathered at a table in some ambiently lit restaurant, the other two listening with interest as seungwan tells them her impression of her team’s new hire.

if it was anything like the compliments seungwan is always slipping into their conversations, sooyoung has nothing to worry about, at least. yet the prospect of being a person worthy of discussion perplexes her.

there’s just something so strange about the thought that you’ve been on someone else’s mind.

“excuse me,” kwon boa says in front of her, finally setting down her phone’s receiver, “are you from sales team two?” and sooyoung promptly pushes the matter aside and forgets about it.

she delivers the needed documents and mr. choi’s message, phrased more diplomatically, of course. the mission ends up being over in about twenty seconds, leaving her with only the obligation to go back down to her floor, to await… more _nothing_ , she supposes.

just as she trudges into the stairwell again, a familiar voice gives her pause.

“i miss you, too.” 

huh. sounds close, probably right by the stairwell door on the next floor down.

and definitely the softest that sooyoung has ever heard son seungwan.

a laugh comes next, oblivious to the loud _chunk_ of the heavy door shutting behind sooyoung’s back.

“cut me some slack, will you? i’m busy, always busy. you can’t always be calling me over little things out of nowhere, silly- i actually have to go in a second.”

comfortably affectionate. that’s the right way to describe the very _new_ lilt to her voice. meant for a boyfriend, maybe? sooyoung suddenly gets the feeling that she shouldn’t be lurking around listening to such a personal conversation.

“ah, unnie, i almost forgot- ”

_unnie?_

“-make sure you say hi to mom and dad for me. it’s been a while.”

shit, she’s talking to her sister. sooyoung definitely should not be listening, because family, it’s _family_ , of course it’s her family-

sooyoung does not smack herself the way she wants to, because the sound would echo entirely too loudly in the closed-in stairwell, so she makes her way down as innocently as she can instead.

when she passes seungwan to get to the door, dipping her head in silently awkward greeting, the other woman doesn’t seem to notice she’s been eavesdropped on. she just gives sooyoung a distracted smile and starts to guide her own conversation to a close. 

_call you later_ is the last thing sooyoung overhears before she’s stepping back into the office, making her way automatically to her desk.

it takes her a second to notice it looks different, because the difference isn’t a very big one. all that’s changed is the blue hair tie now sitting on it, just next to her own snapped one. a familiar blue, at that. 

the same blue she’s seen flashes of on seungwan’s head the last few days, whenever the office gets grossly warm enough that even she needs to gather her short hair up and out of her own way in a tiny ponytail.

“keep it,” her manager says from behind her, coming back to settle into her own seat. “i had an extra.”

“thanks,” sooyoung mumbles, nonplussed. she’s figured out that seungwan doesn’t enjoy too much attention being called to her little favors, so she doesn’t comment on it. doesn’t bring up how seungwan’s hair continues to fall over her face into the heat of the afternoon, untouched.

even a few hours later, when she notices a thin sheen of sweat on seungwan’s brow as she hands over a file, she makes sure she doesn’t say a thing.

  
  


a building as big as the SM Group’s is filled with more than just endless office space. there’s a greenery-filled area at the base of the building that people like to call the “garden,” dotted with courtyards and winding stretches of pavement for walking. even the higher levels have an open-air patio or two, small, plant-filled areas for employees to smoke or have lunch, enjoy some peace and quiet.

over the months, the roof has become one of sooyoung’s favorite little personal haunts. it’s a surprisingly perfect spot. the way from the 14th floor is simple: a short elevator ride to the topmost floor, go through the maintenance door straight ahead, and you’re there. plus, people on lower floors usually don’t want to spare the effort to go all the way up, which rules out most of her potential competition for undisturbed personal time. 

given that, all it had taken was a bit of trial and error, visiting at different times and awkwardly avoiding other employees who beat her to the spot, to figure out what tiny timeslot she could carve out for herself.

once sooyoung notices sales team one’s leader stepping out for his usual smoke break up there, she knows she has about five to ten minutes to make sure nobody has reason to come looking for her. after he returns, she can go upstairs herself for a moment alone, if she needs it.

she definitely needs it today. her own team leader has been in a mood for hours, frazzled and snappy, and especially to her, of course, because life just wouldn’t have it any other way. yet, since she doesn’t seem to be the actual root of his frustration, there’s nothing she can do to make it stop.

the only favor sooyoung can really offer herself is to take a step back.

as she makes her way up the thin metal staircase that leads to the highest part of the roof- the rarely-used helipad that juts from the center- she’s satisfied to see her only company is the usual scattering of cigarette butts and stray food wrappers across the building’s grimy surface.

summer’s peak is approaching faster than sooyoung had expected. with this place utterly unprotected from the sunlight, very soon it’ll be too blistering hot to even think of setting foot up here past the morning, and she’ll have to find a new little sanctuary for a few months. but she’ll cross that bridge when she gets to it.

for now, she leans against the barrier at the rooftop’s edge, enjoying the cool breeze that blows gently past her. the afternoon sun is warm against her face, and the bustle of downtown seoul many stories underneath her is far less taxing on her mind than the office’s flurry of activity. behind her, though she doesn’t turn to face it, she can feel the distantly looming presence of nam mountain, the forest-covered peak that watches over the city.

it’s quite the pretty picture. she has to admit that she likes being a part of it.

if only she could do this whenever she wanted. just ascend away from everything and rest, gather her thoughts. feel a little more like herself, and not worry about if she might fall apart at the seams if this keeps up for a few years.

it might be too early to be thinking so far ahead. still, though- she’s seen plenty of her peers fall victim to overwork without even being in the workforce yet. when the pressure ramps up, you either shape up or ship out. 

and sooyoung doesn’t plan on leaving her position anytime soon.

just as she lets out a heavy breath, shoulders sinking, she hears the sound of the door to the roof swinging open. immediately she stiffens, gathering her composure as best she can, but the voice that calls out to her banishes her alarm instantly. 

“park sooyoung-ssi?”

as she approaches, it’s clear that seungwan doesn’t look mad, or excited, or really like anything at all. still hard to read from just her face.

the way that she comes to rest at sooyoung’s side, though, doesn’t feel unwelcome.

“son-daerinim,” sooyoung greets hesitantly. “what brings you here?”

“nothing much. i come up here too, sometimes.” seungwan’s voice is casual, but her gaze is searching. “why’s a newbie look like she’s got the weight of the world on her shoulders?”

“oh… i’m fine.” it’s not convincing. sooyoung knows it’s not convincing. she clears her throat and tries again. “i’m okay, really. there’s nothing wrong. it’s just nice to come here when i need a moment away from, um.” she wrinkles her nose. “others.”

she’s certain seungwan will understand her meaning, being more than perceptive enough to do so, and is unsurprised when her assumption is right.

“you threaten them, you know.” seungwan’s lips twitch as if that’s amusing. if sooyoung were to take a guess, she even sounds a little like it makes her proud. “that’s why they’re stifling you- like, unconsciously. deep down in their minds.”

“but why?” sooyoung pushes. “these people are years and years my senior. how could i…”

“threaten them? easy. because you’re smart. you have it in you to do better than them, given time, and they’re all about job security around here. gets them a little defensive.” seungwan huffs mirthfully. “plus, you’re pretty. that throws all these salarymen types off even more.”

 _pretty_. the sort of compliment sooyoung would probably have balked at from anyone else. coming from a work senior, at least, she’d much rather hear she’s doing well than anything about her looks.

but seungwan isn’t a lecherous businessman, is she. she’s a nice, professional young woman. even nicer and more professional than sooyoung herself.

just with a very singular talent for defying sooyoung’s strictly _business_ expectations. 

“daerinim.” she lets the honorific slip out with a scoff, because she knows by now that it’s safe to do such things around seungwan. scoff, and frown, and be at least a harmless fraction of how catty she really wants to be, deep inside. “are you sure you don’t butter me up too much?”

“that’s my point of view,” seungwan tells her plainly. “you can take it or leave it.”

“okay,” sooyoung relents. “i’ll take it.” 

“there you go.”

“but i’ve still got a concern.” sooyoung turns to fix her manager with a searching look. “being around me so much, isn’t that… bad? i mean, for you?”

seungwan blinks. “why would it be bad?”

“i don’t know, office politics? i just- i worry.” sooyoung shifts in place, frustrated at her words emerging so vaguely. “i swear i can feel _glaring_ whenever you come near me.”

“maybe they do glare.” seungwan shrugs. “so what? office politics is really just life, sooyoung-ssi. it’s impossible to make everyone happy unless you give in to every person around you.”

“ah…”

“i think we both know you aren’t the type for all of that, either.”

in the second that seungwan’s eyes flit her way, it looks like her mask of eternal neutrality lifts- just enough to reveal actual, genuine indifference to the office politics she seems so dismissive of. but that indifference is also layered over something else entirely. a thin film of oil on the surface of dark water.

a familiar gnawing starts up again in sooyoung at the glimpse of it. a wanting to know what might lie beneath. lately she can’t stop herself from having that urge, thinking of carefully unpacking every layer of son seungwan she can find, like one of those nesting dolls, until she gets to what keeps her going. the driving force at the heart of her.

understanding whatever it is could do her some good. help her feel a little more on track, reach a point where she can feel sure that she knows what she’s doing.

or maybe, on the slightly more pathetic side, she just _really_ needs more friends. 

“i’ve made my choice,” seungwan continues, decisive. almost like she’s trying to convince herself too. “taken a side, what have you. it isn’t something you should be worrying about.” she nudges sooyoung gently with her elbow. “you just focus on yourself. you’re doing a good job so far.”

“really?”

“i mean it.”

seungwan turns back to the view out in front of them, and sooyoung follows suit, taking in the cityscape once more- grimy and weathered, but still so full of persistent, unceasing life.

“it’s a nice day, sooyoung-ssi. don’t you think?”

“it is.”

“let’s try to enjoy it, then,” seungwan advises, voice warm. “i think we owe ourselves that much.”

  
  


_note to self: always call a cab._

sooyoung carefully places this latest professional insight at the top of her growing mental pile.

having to work outside the office is quite common, given all the different companies around korea that the SM Group is regularly in contact with, both large and small. road trips to further-off districts aren’t unheard of, and sometimes staff even deal with being called out to spend a few days in entirely different countries. 

today was sooyoung’s first go at it, though. mr. chae had ordered her to accompany seungwan in meeting a client flying back in after a business trip- his company offices were close, a short walk and a subway ride away from the SM building. a little outing for them to stretch their legs. she had been told to think of it as on-the-job training, or OJT, as they call it for short. 

(privately, having had time to think on it, sooyoung suspects it was more of an excuse to get the two of them out of the building.)

no matter what it was meant to be, it hadn’t gone all that well. their client’s flight had been delayed, and he seemed to have ordered his staff to implement a… defensive strategy until he managed to arrive. leading both of them around the offices, showing them paperwork. doing their best to show that nothing was wrong whatsoever. 

being a law-abiding business partner is all well and good, but sooyoung and seungwan are from _sales_ , not the auditing team. hyperanalyzing down to the smallest misprint isn’t their job. they were worn out once the meeting they had came for finally started, and are even more worn out now that it’s over, having run long. they were meant to be back at the office an hour ago.

perhaps that had been the point of all of that the entire time. businessmen are such a sneaky bunch.

the next subway will be here in a few minutes, at least. sooyoung rocks back and forth as they wait, gently impatient. the soreness in her legs is starting to make itself known, and right now she’d like nothing more than to be in bed, at home. not standing around at the station.

“what do you normally do at times like this?” she says aloud. “when everything’s gone a little wrong.”

seungwan looks at her for a long, solemn second before answering.

“sometimes days end badly,” she intones, “and you can’t do anything about it.”

“very wise,” sooyoung returns dryly, and seungwan laughs, a quiet and airy sound.

“come on, sooyoung-ssi. today’s finish line is right ahead of us.”

rush hour has hit by now, and all of the seats are already taken on the train that pulls in, leaving them stuck standing. sooyoung grips a handle dangling just over her head for balance, watching seungwan grasp one of the bars nearby out of the corner of her eye.

for a little, the situation is… fine. perfectly normal. more people file into the narrow train car as the stops go on, forcing the two of them to shuffle closer to each other to make more room.

then the subway jerks a little too hard as it comes to its next halt, everyone on board moving right along with it, and _it_ happens.

 _it_ , meaning seungwan’s hold on the bar not being enough to keep her from stumbling straight into her. they’re chest to chest in a split second, and sooyoung has a steadying hand on her manager’s shoulder, one of seungwan’s own smaller ones fisted reflexively in the bottom of her shirt, before she even realizes what’s going on.

well, sooyoung thinks to herself, distant in the back of her mind, this is absolutely mortifying.

as seungwan’s fingers unfurl from her blouse, there’s a moment where they nudge warm against her through the thin fabric, just at her waist. something about the feeling has sooyoung tensing further, shrinking away while seungwan rears back with a dazed look on her face. 

sooyoung finds herself concerned, because it's the sort of look you’d expect someone to have if they’d been hit over the head. not if their face was pressed up against someone’s shoulder for all of two seconds.

“s-sorry,” she manages, “daerinim- are you okay?”

“yeah- ” seungwan shakes her head quick and hard, a motion strangely reminiscent of a dog. her short hair bounces about her face briefly before she starts patting at sooyoung’s shirt, carefully smoothing out the wrinkles left by her grip. recentered and back to business as usual. “yeah,” she repeats, a little less stiff, “i’m fine, let me just...”

sooyoung realizes she’s still holding seungwan’s shoulder. gripping it, more like.

“don’t worry,” she says hastily, ripping it off and batting seungwan’s questing hand aside, “i’ll fix it,” and silently sends a _thank you_ up to god for having the subway’s automated announcer serenely inform them that their stop is next. “we should get to the doors,” she adds. 

seungwan’s silent nod of agreement is all the push she needs to turn away, nudging a path back through the crowded train with mumbled apologies.

good thing her back is turned. her manager can’t see how furiously red her face is.

by the time they step out into the station near the office, sooyoung is one hundred percent ready to go home and forget that little embarrassment ever happened. walking around and waiting all day had been draining enough without that little cherry on top. 

just her luck that more paperwork back at the office stands in her way, odds and ends she hadn’t been able to finish before leaving but that still need doing by tomorrow. more entries on the endless list of things thrown at her that she silently accepts, if only for the chance of getting some recognition out of it.

fucking hell, though. she’s never assuming anything will run on time again. _ever._

a hand grasping at her elbow stops her as she moves to start leaving the station.

“don’t you normally go home around this time?”

“i do, but i still have a few tasks, so...” one corner of sooyoung’s mouth twists up wryly. “no can do.”

seungwan’s brow furrows. not too severely, but still enough to notice. sooyoung internally files the look under the _displeased_ category _._

she likes to think that she’s gotten better at interpreting all her manager’s little micro-expressions- maybe even better than everyone else around them at the company. after all, when they’re not separated by their cubicles, she spends most of her time with nothing to do but stare at son seungwan’s face, in some way or another. watching how she handles clients and coworkers, listening attentively to her advice over grills of meat or little plates of side dishes.

practice always makes perfect. even if it isn’t really _intentional_ practice, because her end goal isn’t to memorize all the little quirks of seungwan’s features, it’s to follow her very admirable example. she just can’t do that without having a proper look at her. 

obviously.

“paperwork?” seungwan prompts. she seems to be expecting a little more than a simple _yes_ as an answer.

“yeah. paperwork.” sooyoung scratches at her head, growing awkward at the unexpected question. “have to print out a few reports from the trading database for mr. chae... and proofread the documentation for the, uh,” she stutters, flustering, “the condom project. check it for any typos or miscalculations.”

“the condom project,” seungwan repeats. “ah. the one with those condom suppliers based in colombia?” she tsks. “mr. kim can be lazy, but i thought even he’d be above dumping stuff for _his_ project on you.”

sooyoung is too focused on holding back her too-eager agreement and a _please don’t say condoms out loud again_ to be prepared for what comes after.

“how about i take it off your hands?”

“what?”

“you’ve worked hard today, sooyoung-ssi.” seungwan pats her arm. “it’s no trouble for me to wrap up. go home.”

“but,” sooyoung objects, “i should- ”

“you should listen to your senior, is what you should do.” her manager gives her a smile. but it’s not how it usually goes, small and easy to pass up. her mouth pulls into a blinding, toothy grin instead, the likes of which have never graced her features before. “text me those report titles?”

“there’s a note with them written down on my desk,” sooyoung offers, surprising herself with how readily she puts aside her pride just at the sight of proper emotion on seungwan’s face.

“perfect.” seungwan pats her arm again, a little more force behind her hand now. “get going, then. this is the stop you always start going home from, right?” her head flicks at one of the electric signs jutting out from the ceiling, just behind where sooyoung stands. “the train out from here comes by again in three minutes.”

sooyoung falls for it. makes the mistake of craning her neck behind her to catch the number 3 glowing in white pixels on the screen, as she was just informed of.

when she turns back, seungwan is gone from in front of her, already power walking away to the bustling stairs up to the street.

“hey!” she yells after her, an incredulous laugh welling up just underneath the shout. her lips curl up unbidden at the last sight of her manager she gets- a waving hand disappearing into the crowd, and one final glimpse of that strange, brand new smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me here!
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/superheroau_twt) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/superheroau)


	3. Chapter 3

many parts of life are temporary, but embarrassment definitely feels like it lasts forever. sooyoung’s crystal clear memory of her first bombed presentation in college is proof enough of that.

the moment on the subway replays in her head over and over, for quite a bit longer than she expects. she’ll shut her eyes and the jolt of the train will hit her all over again. seungwan’s warm, light weight against her will flash through her mind when she walks through the subway station on her way to work. she just can’t escape from it.

even after more than enough time passes to move on from such a silly, insignificant occurrence, it still worms its way into the front of her thoughts. catches her off guard at the oddest times.

something else that’s been catching her off guard lately: her brand new, unexpected roommate.

“you really mean it when you say you’ll pay a portion of the rent, right?” she eyes said roommate with playful skepticism over her small kitchen counter. “as long as you can do your streams and stuff?”

“if i had been lying about that, i wouldn’t be here right now,” yerim sighs, looking completely unaffected as she airs out her bowl of ramen, “but please keep insulting me, o mighty white-collar worker,” and sooyoung rolls her eyes.

“i hope they finish renovating your house soon,” she says, rather than arguing further. “and that it turns out perfect.”

yerim pauses. “that isn’t an insult.”

“it’s not,” sooyoung agrees. “it just means that i can’t wait for you to never haunt my house again.”

“i’ve only been here for, like, a week.” yerim laughs. it’s difficult to tell whether the nerves in her voice are altogether fake. “don’t tell me you’re getting ready to kick me out already.”

“i might have a few thoughts on the subject,” sooyoung tells her, voice dripping with mock sweetness, but they both know there isn’t that much of an edge underneath it. she can’t stay mad for long at someone she’s watched over as an unnie since elementary school.

yerim’s effectively moved in now, set up with all the necessities she needs. she’s got plenty of her clothes and more than enough blankets and pillows to be comfortable, along with her giant, neon-lit gaming desktop, which looks like it belongs more in a spaceship than the cramped, bare spare room in sooyoung’s apartment.

apparently her parents have taken this year as a chance to renovate the kim family home, and that produces entirely too much noise for yerim to hold her streams. which are mostly of her playing video games, as far as sooyoung can recall, but are also what she has to do to earn her living as an independent young lady, so she _desperately_ needs a place to crash. 

if anyone else had asked, she would have said no, but yerim had been very convincing over the phone about her… cost effectiveness. 

sooyoung won’t pretend to understand every detail of it, or how it works so well- something about getting lucky with the youtube algorithm- but apparently there’s enough money in yerim’s business for her to cover her own expenses. it’s amazing what you can do with just the internet these days.

maybe sooyoung should have taken up overwatch instead of an office job, but it’s too late to back out now. she contents herself with how well their arrangement works instead. yerim gets the place to herself the majority of the time, and whenever sooyoung ends up coming home she’s usually tired enough to sleep straight through whatever yerim might be up to on her computer.

and now she’s got a little less rent to pay.

all in all, it works out perfectly. almost too perfectly, coming from such a big favor asked so last-minute. sooyoung has already found herself getting used to yerim’s light, shuffling footsteps at late hours, and yogurt cups going mysteriously missing from the fridge. 

most of all, it’s nice to have company around to talk to. a person she can trust wholeheartedly, who doesn’t know the slightest thing about projected profit margins. or what a bill of lading is. 

she hadn’t realized just how _isolated_ she’s been lately. going through the cycle of work, home, work, home, without seeing anyone properly on the outside.

hopefully this new development can do her some good.

  
  


work is different. nothing about the actual office is, really, but something about being there feels off. in a rather unfun way.

she can’t explain why, because nothing has even happened. their division leader hasn’t indicated he wants her head on a stick yet, at least not more than usual. and there’s no difference in how the men on her team treat her, for better or for worse. 

still, a cold and constricting pressure grows in her chest, closing up her throat whenever a coworker approaches. a creeping sensation that she might not belong where she is right now.

a similar foreboding had laid her low for a few months when she was still in school, so the feeling isn’t entirely unfamiliar. she knows that in time, with enough conscious, mindful care, the feeling will pass. it’ll fucking suck, but it’ll pass.

right now, it’s just a matter of working around the misgivings that have knotted inside her. but the more she tries to find the spot where it will all unravel, digs her nails into the tangle, scrabbling for some sort of purchase, some _give_ , the tighter it seems to get.

she berates herself internally for flinching when seungwan taps her shoulder one day, motioning for her to get up. risk assessment had called a meeting with sales team two and the sales division head, one last check over their latest project, and the two of them had been tasked with handling it, as they are for most tedious meetings.

when bae joohyun ends up walking into the room, sooyoung tells herself to not expect anything. they’ve only acknowledged each other once in passing, and that’s it. 

when she doesn’t get more than a vague glint of recognition in joohyun’s eyes as they proceed, she allows herself a pat on the back for not getting her hopes up too much- but joohyun puts that idea to rest by catching her once things come to a close.

“park sooyoung-ssi.”

she’s noticed that despite how softly bae joohyun speaks, there is something so strangely commanding about her. sooyoung doesn’t miss how the others filing out past them twitch at her voice even with the meeting having ended, heads turning ever so slightly to catch whatever she says. much the same effect takes hold in her, locking her in place where she stands behind her chair.

“bae-daerinim.” she ducks her head in quick, apprehensive greeting. “is there something i can do for you?”

“yes, actually.” joohyun eyes her carefully. _gauging_ , that’s the word for her expression. “i’m sure you can guess that it’s hard for us to find the time, since we’re all in different teams, but we manage to get together every once in a while. me, son-daeri, and kang seulgi-ssi, from the steel team. we were just wondering,” she continues, casual, “if next time… you might like to join us?”

“oh.” sooyoung is only vaguely aware of the startled _we were?_ that sounds from beside her. “i… sure.” 

she pauses. recomposes herself. that’s no way to answer her generous coworker. and it certainly doesn’t match the pleasant surprise that blooms inside her at the invitation.

“yes!” she insists again, pumping a little more enthusiasm into her voice. “i would love to.”

“great.” joohyun’s lips curve into a lopsided smile, looking properly satisfied. “then we’ll be seeing you soon.”

“right- great! great.” seungwan laughs along with her, a slight edge to her voice as she starts ushering sooyoung out of the conference room. “come on, sooyoung-ssi. we’ve got work to do.”

“nice seeing you!” sooyoung manages in farewell, before being half-pushed back out into the office ahead of her antsy manager. “daerinim,” she starts immediately, brow furrowed, “is something wrong?”

“no, everything’s fine, bae-daeri is just…” 

seungwan trails off. shakes her head resolutely, before telling her what she always does. 

“you know what? don’t worry about it.” 

then one of those smiles is creasing up her face again, bright and exciting, and sooyoung is a little too dazzled by the sight to ask.

she isn’t up to anything special when it dawns on her, simply going through the well-practiced motions of her daily routine. washing some dishes, zoning out amidst the clinking of plates and hiss of running water. 

thinking about son seungwan.

just the usual.

as sooyoung sets the last pair of chopsticks out to dry, though, an epiphany strikes her so quickly she almost drops them.

it becomes crystal clear in that moment that this is something she can’t overcome on her own. it’s like the white bear problem. tell someone they need to not think about a white bear, and suddenly all they’ll be able to think about is a white bear.

what she really needs, she tells herself, peeling off her wet rubber gloves absentmindedly, is an outsider’s thoughts on the subject.

“kim yerim!” sooyoung bursts out, throwing open the door to her friend’s room. “i need your help with something.”

“why don’t you just yell out your address too while you’re at it,” yerim grumbles, pulling off her headset. “you’re lucky i wasn’t on voice chat.”

“pay attention to me,” sooyoung orders, lips jutting into a pout. “i’m being serious. and i’ll knock next time, promise.”

“okay, okay.”

yerim sets her headphones aside. tabs out of whatever’s on her computer with a speed that looks damn near automatic, fingers flashing across the keyboard without even a second glance, and turns to face her. 

“i’m all ears,” she says, looking so resolute for a moment that sooyoung can’t help but giggle. that’s the funny thing about yerim- sometimes she wears maturity incredibly well, and other times it’s sort of like a kid wearing adult clothes.

“you don’t have to look so serious. i’m just thinking about... someone. a lot. and i need a second opinion.” sooyoung’s brow furrows pensively. “to sound out _why_ , you know? i think i have to talk it out, or i’ll never figure out the reason.”

“uh oh. that look on your face is not good.” yerim examines her with a frown and evidently renewed interest. “thinking about _someone_ a lot… and you’re totally starry-eyed. is this about some guy at work?”

“no, it’s not about a guy,” sooyoung sighs. “just hear me out, will you?”

“not a guy? someone else, then.” yerim laughs, a playfully dramatic tone coming over her voice. “has our sooyoung unnie gone and fallen for some cold-hearted business bitch?”

“she’s not a _bitch_ ,” sooyoung protests, only to immediately slap her hands over her mouth in dismay.

shit. 

that was definitely not where she thought this talk would go in less than a minute.

the two of them stare at each other for a moment, frozen. silent and wide-eyed. uncertain of what this means, exactly, because it does definitely mean something. they both know each other well enough that it’s impossible to ignore what just happened.

“okay…” yerim starts slowly. “i was sort of joking when i said that.”

“i know,” sooyoung squeaks, words still muffled by her own palms.

“but you weren’t kidding.” yerim gawks at her. “what you just said, that was totally serious. wasn’t it?”

“it’s really not like that, though.” sooyoung’s hands drop down weakly into her lap. “she’s my senior. at work. her cubicle’s right next to mine, and- and she’s really nice.”

“nice,” yerim repeats.

“that’s right,” sooyoung insists. “she’s done me so many favors, and nice little things, and i can’t think of any way i can make it up to her!” she scowls, face still flushed from her misspoken words. “i’m not supposed to just sit there and be coddled, i have to show i’m worth the trouble. but there’s never anything i have enough experience to help with. and she’s always taking my tasks, when she’s already so tired all the time…”

her voice trails off.

“i don’t know- i don’t like it. it bugs me.”

“you care about her.”

“she’s my one coworker who actually cares about me, so. that’s the least i can do.”

“sure...” 

sooyoung watches the search for a new question play out on yerim’s face in real time. 

“what’s she look like?” yerim finally settles on. “i wanna see.”

“oh. um- ”

though she considers getting up to fetch her phone, sooyoung reminds herself she doesn’t have any photos of seungwan on it because she doesn’t randomly take photos of her superiors. her manager have much of an online footprint to speak of, either. her contact picture on their messaging app is a pretty but faceless landscape, and sooyoung can’t even remember her ever mentioning a social media account.

that certainly leaves her with a bit of a problem.

“you don’t have any pictures,” yerim deduces, crestfallen. “that’s a shame.”

“since when were you so invested in who i work with?” sooyoung protests.

“since i found out you had an office crush,” yerim says primly. “i’ll be your wingwoman from afar, unnie. your second opinion. isn’t that just what you wanted?”

“i didn’t ask for you to do all of _that_ ,” sooyoung points out. yerim just shrugs, though a shadow briefly passes over her face that has sooyoung biting back any more snarky responses. 

she hasn’t talked with yerim properly in a while- _really_ talked, not just exchanged simple, lighthearted conversation- and it feels like there might be something going on she doesn’t know about. some other reason yerim happened to come her way now, of all the times.

and why she seems very enthusiastic about the prospect of ending up with seungwan as something more than just coworkers. even more than sooyoung herself. 

granted, that might not say much, because sooyoung’s level of enthusiasm for the matter is zero. not there.

completely nonexistent. 

she’s certain the thought has never so much as crossed her mind.

  
  


escaping from yerim’s interest is hard, what with them living together and everything. sooyoung only lasts a few days before giving way to the curiosity pressuring her, persistently asking to see her nice, pretty manager, and ends up promising she’ll try to take a picture.

even the excuse of being too busy and too close for it not to be obvious only holds up for so long. by the time sooyoung spots seungwan’s company ID badge in plain view on her desk, sat neatly on top of her coiled-up lanyard while the woman herself is elsewhere on the 14th floor, she’s forced to accept that now is her chance. mr. kim is out with a client, and mr. choi is busy handling a conference call, far away from their section of the office. 

no witnesses, minimal risk. it’s the perfect opportunity.

now, if her phone camera could just focus on the grainy photo on the badge’s front instead of rendering it a mass of indistinguishable pixels, that would be great.

“sooyoung-ssi. what are you doing?”

sooyoung whips around to see seungwan watching her in confusion. she blanches as she considers what this must look like- her surreptitiously leaning over her manager’s desk, taking a photo of the contents.

that’s weird. not something you can lie your way out of very easily.

so she takes the plunge, and goes for the truth instead.

“my, uh, roommate, she wanted to see what my teammates looked like.” her voice wavers nervously. “and pictures of you are kind of hard to find…”

“ah… i see.” 

seungwan pauses, seeming to consider the matter for a long, suspenseful moment, which sooyoung prays doesn’t involve any thoughts of reporting her to internal affairs.

“should i sit for a photo?” she finally offers. “it’d probably look better than my company ID.”

“o-oh. yeah. if you want to?” god, this is so stupid. sooyoung feels her face heat up as seungwan sidles past her and back to her chair. “you can just- do what you normally do. like, get back to whatever you were just working on, and don’t look at me. pretend i’m not here.”

“okay.” 

the little smile seungwan gives her is so innocent. so blissfully ignorant of how the casual, unassuming picture sooyoung then snaps of her at her desk is going to be analyzed with near-microscopic focus.

let it never be said that kim yerim has never cared about her.

“i never knew you had a roommate,” seungwan remarks after, sounding curious, and sooyoung lets out a sigh. watches as the image delivers to yerim along with an exasperated text of _happy now?_

“i didn’t have one,” she agrees. “i’m kind of doing a friend a favor. she’s…” 

hm. how can she explain it, exactly.

“... an entrepreneur,” she decides.

“ah.” seungwan nods in understanding. “so things are still a little up in the air for her, huh.”

“yeah. she needs a place to stay, and we go back a long time, so.” sooyoung shrugs, trying her best to look nonchalant. “it’s not really a big deal.”

there’s a soft _oof_ sound from seungwan then, an impressed rush of breath. “your kind heart never ceases to amaze, sooyoung-ssi.”

the instinctive response welling up in sooyoung’s throat is to deny the words, wriggle her way out of having to acknowledge them properly. but something new rises to clash with it this time- remembering the mildly disapproving look that forms on seungwan’s face whenever she does exactly that.

_take the compliment, take the compliment-_

“thank you,” she manages.

“mhm.”

work returns to being the blissfully mundane non-event it normally is afterwards, interrupted only by mr. choi arriving back at his desk.

and, a few minutes later, the much-awaited buzz of a new text from yerim.

_[2:03 pm] yerm: is she as big of a nerd as she looks_

sooyoung makes a face, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure her team leader is fully occupied before picking up her phone to reply.

_[2:03 pm] roomie <3: don’t make fun of her!!! _

_[2:03 pm] yerm: should i make fun of you instead then_

_[2:04 pm] roomie <3: i already told you son-daerinim really is nice _

_[2:04 pm] roomie <3: give her a break _

_[2:04 pm] yerm: ha ha sooyoung unnie hangs with nerds_

aaaaand there she goes.

all things considered, this is probably the best way things could have turned out. affectionate teasing is yerim’s favorite way of showing love, so she might as well have just sent over her seal of approval.

which does raise the question of why seungwan even needs her best friend’s _seal of approval_ in the first place. she’s just her coworker. not… anything more than that. a friend at best.

besides, even if there was something else sooyoung wanted, she doesn’t know if she would even stand a chance.

“park sooyoung!” comes mr. choi’s voice in a familiar bark. sooyoung scrambles to put her phone aside before bolting upright, her chair rattling from the motion.

“gwajangnim,” she responds automatically, mind still scrambling to catch up with her reflexes, and meets his suspicious gaze as best she can.

“i need you to shred these,” her team leader orders brusquely. “have you got yourself together enough to do that?”

sooyoung flusters, lips pursing. “i’m sorry,” she says, taking the documents. “i’ll get on it right away.”

she tells herself that the prickling sensation at her back all the way to the copy room isn’t a pair of gently concerned eyes.

  
  


the picture seems to have pacified yerim, at least for a little. it’s been days since sooyoung has last heard her mention “your unnie at the office.” but she doesn’t have time to dwell on all that anyway- and not just because work is keeping her busy. 

very soon, she’ll be going out for dinner with bae joohyun and kang seulgi. and seungwan. their schedules finally all managed to miraculously open up on the same night, and that night is nearly upon her. 

sooyoung imagines this is what it must feel like when you’re about to meet your future in-laws. the same sort of desperation to impress, coupled with the horrific uncertainty of not knowing what tiny little thing about yourself might mess it all up anyway.

she holds back an amused snort where she sits in front of her laptop. she’s been a nervous person lately, but this might be overdoing it a little. it’s not like joohyun and seulgi are going to eat her. they seem much too professional for that.

anyone who can get along well with seungwan can’t be all that scary, anyway.

once everyone on their floor has started gearing up to leave the office, she notices seungwan does seem a little restless when seulgi waves them over to join her. but that’s easy to explain away. introducing people to your friends can be a little nerve-wracking sometimes.

if this is like meeting in-laws, then that would make her and seungwan the couple...

maybe she should just scrap the metaphor.

kang seulgi introduces herself with a firm handshake and warm smile, and sooyoung instantly feels a little more at ease. there’s a sort of office stereotype about the steel team members. that unlike the others on the 14th floor, they match the measured, gradual shifts of the natural resource industry they deal with. it doesn’t mean they’re lazy, exactly, just- slower.

when sooyoung first heard it, it had seemed rather silly, but seulgi seems to fit right into the idea. as it turns out, it’s quite nice to be around someone who doesn’t seem to be so _on_ all the time. seulgi’s presence is the soothing one of a person that’s actually relaxed, not just pretending to be.

and she already knows bae joohyun. they skip that last introduction as they head for their hangout of choice, a cozy bar that serves western-style food, and sooyoung’s new acquaintances get straight to telling her about their history at the SM Group.

sooyoung isn’t shocked to find out joohyun had taken seungwan and seulgi under her wing as interns. the stoic calm to her face is visibly mirrored in seungwan’s, and she and seulgi seem to share a similarly approachable, gentle demeanor. 

they must really click. no wonder the three of them remained close over the years, even after the company spread them across different floors and incredibly busy teams.

“i’ve been here for what, four years now?” joohyun muses, in the middle of a tangent on work hierarchy as they get settled at a table- her and seulgi on one side, sooyoung and seungwan on the other. “and i only got promoted recently. around the same time as this kid here, actually,” she adds, tossing her head pointedly across the table.

but seungwan doesn’t take the praise with the awkward smile sooyoung expects, holding her hands up in protest instead.

“i just got lucky!” she insists. “it could have been anyone else that lee-sajang overheard that day and you know it.”

seulgi shuts her down with friendly but swift effectiveness. “she’s just trying to be modest. the company president came down to check in on our floor, and she was so busy explaining her project proposal to her team leader she didn’t even notice him at first. and- ”

“- then he challenged me to explain it to him instead,” seungwan continues hurriedly, seeming intent on making this story as short as possible, “and i managed to, and he liked it. more than choi-gwajang did, actually. so i ended up having to present it in front of the board of directors for approval.”

“and you got it approved,” sooyoung concludes, wide-eyed. “with the president’s blessing… wow. that sounds like a big deal.”

“i guess.” seungwan’s voice does have a hint of pride to it, reluctant as it may be. “just ended up getting promoted a bit earlier than usual, that’s all.”

“speaking of that, why am i the only one of us who hasn’t been promoted yet?” seulgi interrupts, addressing the air with a frown and a pout. “i wanna join the deputy manager club, too.” 

that earns her a swat on the arm from joohyun. “yah, you work enough for both of us combined, deputy manager or not. just wait a year and people will call you kang-daerinim as much as you want.”

sooyoung pushes her features into a smile, joining along in the other womens’ infectious laughter, but the energy behind it isn’t quite the same. she knows she doesn’t share all the history that they do, the smooth flow of their conversation.

the pressure in her starts to constrict by another fraction, slow and tight, until the squeezing sensation is halted by three pairs of eyes fixing on her at once.

“park sooyoung-ssi.”

she blinks, shoulders stiffening ever so slightly. 

“yeah…?”

“how are _you_ doing?” seulgi prompts, kind smile still in place. “your first few months have been going well, i hope.”

“ah. i don’t know if i’d say _well_... it’s not easy going for me yet. but i do have son-daerinim.” sooyoung bobs her head sheepishly at seungwan. “she looks out for me so much, it honestly makes things a lot easier.”

“oh, i believe it. you have no idea how excited this one was to have a junior of her own when they announced we’d have interns again.” joohyun laughs. “i’m sure she’s just over the moon to have you.”

“that’s right! seungwannie is a very caring person,” seulgi chimes in earnestly, while seungwan’s ears continue to grow a deeper shade of pink with every word uttered. “i’m glad the office hasn’t wrung it all out of her yet. i was almost starting to get worried.”

“no need to,” sooyoung assures, relieved at the chance to easily go along with her seniors’ teasing. “i know i’m in good hands.”

“i need a beer,” her manager grumbles in turn, and sooyoung can’t stop a smile from playing on her lips at the sight of her reddening face.

the night goes far smoother than she had worried about, seulgi and joohyun taking turns questioning her and narrating a surprising amount of office shenanigans in equal measure. before tonight, sooyoung wouldn’t have believed _son seungwan_ and _shenanigans_ even belonged in the same sentence.

the woman in question seems intent on drowning each of her bouts of flustered embarrassment in alcohol, so it doesn’t come as much of a surprise when she stumbles on their way out, grabbing onto sooyoung’s arm to right herself.

again with the literally falling into each other. sooyoung swallows, lets seungwan brace herself against her without a word.

“that’s why i don’t like drinking that much,” her manager complains, arm now linked with sooyoung’s completely. “get a little buzzed and you start tripping over things, or- or things come out that just _shouldn’t_. it’s scary stuff.”

“but you drink with me all the time, daerinim,” sooyoung objects. seungwan waves a hand with heavy, tipsy incoordination.

“that’s different,” she insists. “you’re different. i can _limit_ myself, with you. i’m not such a lightweight i can’t handle a courtesy shot or two. but these two.” her eyes narrow at joohyun and seulgi. “they enable me.” 

sooyoung can see what she means about things “coming out.” this is probably the most words her manager has ever said at once that aren’t building into some kind of wise advice. or compliments on sooyoung’s blossoming professionalism. 

“sometimes it’s good for things to come out, though,” seulgi points out sagely. the humor in her tone is a bit more cryptic than sooyoung’s been led to expect. until now, she’s only seemed the type to say exactly what she means. 

the moment is probably harmless. doesn’t actually mean anything. sooyoung firmly plants her foot down on the part of her chanting _she’s pretending and she actually hates you_ and returns her attention to the conversation.

“you’re sure you can get home by yourself?” joohyun is examining seungwan with narrowed eyes. “son-daeri, you’re in a bit of a state.”

“excuse you,” seungwan shoots back, flushed and indignant, “i can take care of myself, _bae-daeri_.” 

joohyun’s title slipping out in good-natured challenge makes sooyoung realize- that’s the first time she’s heard the other women exchange such honorifics tonight.

it’s odd, imagining that all of that might be a bit of a joke to them. just workplace formality rather than something they really have to live by. 

does being around them tonight change where she stands? make her a part of their personal lives too, not just their professional ones?

while her companions bicker merrily, sooyoung mulls the question over. it’s probably not appropriate to ask people she’s just met, but it does bear thinking about. her genuine connections in the office feel scarce, any semblance of “work friends” even scarcer. 

seungwan doesn’t move away from beside her, their arms still linked. fingers wrapped around her forearm.

sooyoung’s face warms, just a little.

“will you need any help going home?” joohyun persists.

“i’ll take care of it,” sooyoung suggests. enough office workers frequent this area that there are always cabs wandering around on the hunt for passengers, and seungwan’s address is still in her phone from when she’d called herself a ride home that fateful morning, one week after she’d been hired. even after months, it’s somehow managed to stick around her maps app, hiding just a few scrolls underneath different clients’ offices.

she braces herself for a question, any sort of wondering why she might know such private details.

“sure, sooyoung-ssi,” seulgi pipes up instead. “if you insist.”

in the end, she’s let go with cheerful farewells from joohyun and seulgi. they split off on their own ways home, leaving her with seungwan, who seems content to cling woozily onto one of her arms as she tries to wave a cab down with another.

her manager seems surprised when she slides into the car along with her after rattling off her address.

“are you trying to be my guard dog or something?” seungwan teases. “cute. but you don’t have to, you know.”

“i’d feel bad if i just shoved you in a cab and left.” sooyoung dismisses the matter in a hurry. pointedly ignores the presence of the word _cute_. “your place isn’t too far from mine, anyway. it’s no trouble.”

“just ‘cause i’m small doesn’t mean i can’t put up a good fight,” seungwan counters lightly. “but thanks anyway. ‘s nice of you.”

their driver mercifully doesn’t try to make any conversation. the ride stays silent for a while, just taking in the city lights while a late-night DJ babbles on the radio.

“park sooyoung.” 

seungwan seems different sat here in the taxi’s dark backseat, leaning uncaringly into sooyoung’s side. a little more relaxed, mellow and loosened up after a good-spirited night out. sooyoung thinks about the knot balled up inside her. wonders if her manager has one of her own.

if it slackens in the same way whenever they’re around each other.

“you’re a good kid,” seungwan finally says, settling on the words after what seems like very intense thought. “i… hope you know that. that you can remember that.”

“i’ll try,” sooyoung agrees, bemused. “thank you, daerinim.”

“it’s easy to lose track…” seungwan’s voice tapers off quietly. distant, lost in thought. “just hang in there. okay?”

“i’ll try my best.”

“i know the company doesn’t feel like a very fair place,” seungwan continues. “it’s a dog-eat-dog world, but we chose to live in it, didn’t we. for the challenge.” she lets out a huff of amusement. “and for the pay. sometimes the best thing we can do is endure, so we can be there when better things eventually circle around back to us.”

hearing her ramble this way is odd. new.

not unpleasant.

“is that what you do?” sooyoung pushes curiously, unable to help herself.

“well, i try. hard to say if it’s been worth it yet, early promotion stuff aside. i don’t think all that helped my standing at work very much.” seungwan hums, thinking. “but things are alright, right now. i can manage.”

“that’s good,” sooyoung tries. she’s not sure what she can say to that- the realization that this whole time, they’ve been more in the same boat than she had thought. her being pushed away because of her potential, and seungwan, well. also being pushed away because of her potential. it would certainly explain some things.

has she just been too self-absorbed lately to catch on?

“you should focus on yourself,” seungwan reminds her, like she just knows what she’s thinking. “like i’ve told you. my problems aren’t yours.”

“i’m not asking about you because i think i have to…” 

sooyoung fusses at her sleeve, averts her gaze. the air between them feels a little too serious, all of a sudden. 

“it’s me asking. not park sooyoung, your junior. just me.”

seungwan isn’t looking at her either. sooyoung can see her just out of the corner of her eye, staring out the window by her side.

“i’m really okay. do you want that in writing?” she chuckles. “son seungwan, not your manager, is okay. she has a nice life going for her. good friends at work.”

“that’s all i need to hear,” sooyoung promises, and finally lets herself relax, sinking with a relieved sigh into the comfortable silence that follows. 

seungwan’s head doesn’t budge from her shoulder the whole way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me here!
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/superheroau_twt) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/superheroau)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for your patience for this update! hope you all enjoy...

sooyoung has a carefully cultivated impression of herself as a busy, mature young woman. she doesn’t do crushes, fluttering schoolgirl feelings. she worries about adult things, like balancing her monthly budget, and whether she can manage running to catch the subway without breaking one of her already wearing-down heels. because her priorities are set up properly, she can successfully get by in both her personal and professional life.

but all the self-affirming, toughen-up reminders she can come up with seem to be no match for her manager.

push one thought of seungwan away, and two more sprout in their place. it’s a never-ending struggle, which she personally blames one kim yerim for causing in the first place.

 _office crush._ please. the idea- it hadn’t even crossed her mind. until yerim said it, at least. and now not a day goes by where sooyoung isn’t forced to seriously contend with how nice seungwan is. how considerately and gently she handles sooyoung’s concerns and obvious lack of experience. the way every word they exchange, every wordless look of amusement or resignation that passes between them in the office, feels like something that matters a little too much for comfort.

the list goes on. and on, and on, and on.

sooyoung’s breaking point becomes abruptly visible, straight ahead and getting closer by the minute, when seungwan walks into the office dressed like… well.

to borrow yerim’s snappy little phrase, like a _business bitch_. 

the sound of heels thudding purposefully against the floor is what announces her arrival. sooyoung looks up from her work as the unfamiliar sound approaches, only to end up staring at seungwan with wide eyes while her manager marches over to her desk in a dark pencil skirt and matching blazer, both cut in the most intimidatingly form-fitting manner sooyoung has ever seen on her figure.

it looks like a bizarrely out of character fashion choice, and yet when sooyoung looks around in alarmed confusion, she finds she’s the only one surprised to see any of this.

instead, their teammates seem… grateful. there’s not a snarky remark or even an unnecessary wolf whistle to be heard from them. just quiet approval.

mr. choi shuffles papers at his desk, a knowing look on his face. “thank you for taking the meeting, seungwan-ssi,” he says, “we’ll owe you one.”

“i’ll take your paperwork for today,” mr. kim chimes in, sounding subdued for once.

“thank you,” seungwan says, waving them off with a slightly constipated look on her face. “it’s no problem. now,” she says, finally turning to face sooyoung in full, “sooyoung-ssi, are you ready…?”

her voice drops off into startled silence.

sooyoung is, in fact, ready. she had gotten a text about today’s plans last night. something about a last-minute schedule change, and them having to take a rather particular 10 a.m. meeting. 

getting assigned a task that wasn’t pushing papers was already exciting enough. but there had also been one last instruction that followed. three neat english words that had sent her into a bit of a panic.

_dress to impress._

it wasn’t exactly much to work with, but something about it gave sooyoung a strangely intense feeling of urgency. enough for her to resort to emergency measures after a solid twenty minutes of mounting frustration while sifting through her wardrobe.

her mother had practically been more excited about this job than she had. there had been splurging on a few gifts that she insisted were essentials- nice perfume, some high-end makeup. new, extra professional photos for all her business needs. nothing out of the ordinary.

but then there was the suit. _the_ suit to end all suits, custom ordered to sooyoung’s exact, meticulously taken measurements. the thing is so brutally sharp and authoritative that she hasn’t even worn it to the office yet, even after months of working there. it makes her look like she’s trying to be the damn CEO.

which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. sooyoung had just ended up learning very quickly that the last thing she wants to appear as to her team is a show-off.

thank goodness her coworkers have decided to suck it up and deal with it silently just this once. who knows, it might even push them a step closer to figuring out that when duty calls, she won’t be happy answering with anything less than her best efforts. because this company actually didn’t hire her just so she could do nothing.

back in the office, seungwan looks her up and down, very slowly. like she’s trying very hard to peel her eyes away, almost physically, velcro-style, but can’t quite manage it.

she stops, for a moment. clamps her mouth shut, and does it again.

“nice outfit,” she eventually says.

sooyoung fidgets, self-conscious under the scrutiny. 

“is this good?” she tries. “you did say dress to impress...”

“what? oh, it’s fine. yeah, more than fine.” seungwan waves a hand in a way that seems vaguely approving, seeming to finally judder back into action. “knocked it out of the park,” she continues in a hurry, dropping her bag down on her desk before pivoting away neatly on a heel. “now if you’ll excuse me, i’m going to get a little coffee in me before we go.”

sooyoung doesn’t find her manager when she wanders into the break room a short time later, grabbing her own packet of instant coffee to whip up. she does find the next best person hanging around, though.

“kang seulgi-ssi,” she says in greeting.

“ah, park sooyoung-ssi! hi.” seulgi’s face brightens at the sight of her- there’s her usual knack for making people feel welcome, back in action. “someone’s all dressed up. going to meet mr. han?”

“yeah.” sooyoung nods, wide-eyed. “you could tell?”

her five-minute introduction to the man had told her this much: mr. han is an executive of one of the company’s suppliers. the kind who demands every stop pulled out to entertain him. alcohol, fine dining, even nights with women if he’s in a real mood- he just _demands_ , a lot. 

but he’s quite easily distracted, which means there are other ways to keep him in his place. more efficient ways, which work especially well if you aren’t a sour-faced, middle-aged salaryman.

“it’s easy to guess it’s him.” seulgi’s button nose wrinkles. “steel team doesn’t deal with him too much, but i’ve heard the stories. you’ve got this, though! you look really good.” her expression shifts slyly. “and our son-daerinim looks very good too. i’m sure you two will give a great impression.”

“she does look nice,” sooyoung agrees weakly, though it feels difficult to admit as much, and wow. even things she isn’t saying to seungwan’s face feel different now. she may be in far deeper than she had assumed.

“she only dresses up like that if the occasion’s extra special, don’t you know,” seulgi continues. “but she cleans up really nice if she has to.”

sooyoung gives seulgi a dubious look.

“i can see that.” 

if she didn’t know any better, she’d almost think seulgi was trying to prod a particular response out of her. but the seulgi she’s gotten an impression of so far isn’t like that. if she wanted to hear something, she’d ask sooyoung for it to her face.

...right?

why is everything getting so _frustrating_ all of a sudden?

“fighting!” seulgi says, holding up a cheerful thumbs up. the smile doesn’t fade off her face even as sooyoung walks off in an ill-concealed huff.

  
  


the hardest part of much-dreaded meetings is the waiting. it’s nothing less than required company policy to be early to things, which means the waiting is even worse. enough time for your hands to start growing clammy, for your leg to start bouncing with pent-up energy.

sooyoung can’t lie- despite the experience she now has, her nerves have started to fray a little now that they’ve arrived at mr. han’s company offices. this has to be the most high-profile client she’s had to face since she started working here. her chest feels tight. like something’s squeezing around it. balling up and knotting inside.

but, she reminds herself, if she has son seungwan and her hardy, eternally _ready_ demeanor to rely on, she should be perfectly fine managing a simple hour or two of business discussions. it’s nothing she hasn’t done before.

“if you’re dealing with mr. han as a woman, you need to present a strong image. but that’s really all,” her manager continues explaining to her, voice reassuringly unworried. “it sounds a lot scarier than it actually is. we just have to distract him with our businesslike attitude, and he’ll play right into our hands. he gives off kind of a weird vibe, but...” she hesitates. “doing this is a lot better than what the guys usually do.”

“what do the guys usually do?” sooyoung asks, frowning, and seungwan makes a face.

“well. the normal process is, they all get so drunk they can barely walk, and hope he’s wasted enough to sign the contract when they put it in front of him at the end of the night.”

ah.

she had been talking about the… traditional method.

“gross,” sooyoung finally mumbles.

“yeah, you don’t know empathy until you’ve seen a grown man humiliate himself just to make sure he nails a contract. really makes you put yourself in their shoes.” seungwan sighs, an awkward laugh bubbling up just behind the sound. “sorry. that makes it sound a little too awful.”

“i don’t think there’s a way to make it sound good.” sooyoung’s hand flits hesitantly against seungwan’s arm, a halfhearted attempt at a reassuring pat. “but they’re kind of awful themselves, sometimes. so i guess it balances out.”

seungwan cracks a smile at that. “they can be, can’t they. you know, that’s the delicate balancing act of the office, sooyoung-ssi,” she continues, and puffs up a little in that benevolently self-important way she gets about her when dispensing worldly wisdom. “people suck, but then you remember their job is supporting three kids at home. even one mistake is one more thing for them to worry about. so you hold your anger in until it passes.”

“caring _too_ much is also a thing, though,” sooyoung points out, “isn’t it?”

“sure,” seungwan agrees. “you can only put up with so much before it’s overwhelming. and, you know. for some people, business relationships are _only_ business, so they might just walk all over you even if you mean well.” 

the awkward laugh slips out in earnest then. just the slightest sign of her deflating.

“just- watch out, i suppose. i know you care a lot about what everyone else thinks.”

“i do hope you’re not trying to warn me about something,” sooyoung says, only half joking, but seungwan quickly shakes her head.

“i’m not implying anything!” she insists. “i mean it. i’m honest with my friends, sooyoung-ssi. if something was up, i’d tell you.”

 _friends._ that’s what they are. the fact isn’t anything that special, not even something sooyoung had ever really doubted, but hearing it aloud gives her a warm feeling all the same.

“now, i actually have a little question for you.”

“okay,” sooyoung relents, though her relief is mixed with some trepidation. “what is it?”

“so. for our meeting.” seungwan fixes her with a serious look. “glasses or no glasses? give me a verdict.”

_is that it?_

“ah,” sooyoung says, recovering her composure. “well, we want to give stern and sexy, right?” 

“right...”

sooyoung considers the question for a moment, fixing her eyes intently on seungwan’s face. 

honestly, it’s a tough call to make. she’s used to seeing seungwan with glasses every day, yet she’s also seen her without them plenty of times now, which is enough experience to know each side has its perks. but…

“sooyoung-ssi. is it… that hard? you look like you’re off somewhere very far away.”

maybe she’s spent a little too long staring.

“keep them on,” sooyoung decides. “it tops off the look just right.”

“stern and sexy,” seungwan repeats under her breath. smiles to herself, for some reason, before getting back to business. “alright. the glasses will stay.” her expression perks up at something just over sooyoung’s shoulder. “and you told me just in time! he’s here. look sharp,” she orders, adding an encouraging slap on the back for good measure.

mr. han is a gaunt, unassuming man in glasses and a nerdy-looking sweater. just at a glance, you’d never think any of the whispered rumors were founded in anything, let alone true. but he eases up at the sight of them, a small smirk forming on his face like he’s certain he’s about to get his way, and sooyoung gets it immediately.

no wonder she feels so distinctly pissed to see him constantly nod and try unsuccessfully to butter seungwan up.

like, so what if her manager is expertly leading him into a deal that favors the company rather than his own interests? so what if this was all part of the plan anyway?

it’s just not fun to know that he’s _ogling_ her, and she’s supposed to sit there and do nothing about it so this can all work out. that’s all.

she glances down at where her manager sits to her left, watching her calmly outline the next set of contract terms for him. she had seemed so used to this. completely ready to take one for the team to keep things moving. 

if it’s her own willing choice, sooyoung should probably do as seungwan’s advised her, and focus on herself instead. it’s not her fight, and she can learn from this, note what kind of impression she should be giving to higher-ups.

but in the end, all she can bring herself to be proud of after an hour is going the whole time without throwing her suit jacket over seungwan and dragging her out of the room.

  
  


the heat of summer has finally started to mellow into cool autumn air, but sooyoung’s workload still hasn’t gotten the message. the end of the year approaching means company evaluations, going over employee performance and figuring out who deserves raises or demotions. despite it still being a few months away, sooyoung is definitely feeling the pressure, right along with her coworkers.

an unfortunate consequence of that is how sparse her outings with seungwan have become. she has to relish in them now more than ever, taking every chance she can to wander off to some restaurant or other with her manager.

by now, they’ve exhausted most of the local haunts, so seungwan tends to lead her to random hole-in-the-wall places, which she seems to have a never ending list of. they’ve sort of made an event out of it. sooyoung anticipates the fun little surprise, and seungwan gets to bask in the good feeling of showing someone else something new. everybody wins.

sooyoung doesn’t even mind the extra walking around after long workdays.

there is an enthralling shine to seungwan’s eyes as they make their way down a narrow side street, an eager glow to her features like she’s lit up from the inside. she doesn’t talk too much in the office, but now, whenever they’re out together, it’s like the floodgates open, and everything about her becomes magnetic. grabs all of sooyoung’s attention. 

too much of it, if the way she nearly walks into someone directly in front of her is anything to judge by.

seungwan catches it before she does, pulling her aside by the arm with a murmured _careful_ before making a seamless return to her enthusiastic rambling about udon noodles. sooyoung nods along mutely, too busy trying not to crumple at the feeling of seungwan’s lingering hand, her grip remaining warm and comfortable on sooyoung’s wrist.

“ah! i’ve been meaning to ask,” the other woman remarks, an idea having seemingly sparked in her head. “first year projects will be coming up soon. how are you feeling about it?”

ah, the first year project. the bane of every new hire’s existence, in which you draft up your own full-fledged project proposal and submit it to all the needed internal departments in the hopes of approval. jumping through every hoop held up by the finance division, hoping your project survives risk assessment, plus the scrutiny of your own division and teammates… it’s a lot to put on your plate on top of the rest of your job.

“i want to start early,” sooyoung answers readily, because that, at least, she definitely does. even the mere idea of rushing things, right at the moment the company will be evaluating her the most intensely, is something she refuses to entertain. she would probably age ten years for every day spent cramming in her preparations.

“that’s our sooyoung,” seungwan says, nodding sagely. “that sensibility is gonna get you far, you know. don’t lose it.”

“thank you,” sooyoung mumbles, and ducks her head for a moment to hide the flush the approval sends through her already red face.

“plus, i know jooh- i mean, _bae-daeri_ will be happy to help you too,” seungwan adds, quickly correcting herself. “she knows everything you might need about the company’s global infrastructure. i think she’s the only reason my project back in the day even got off the ground.”

“i’ll try to remember that.”

seungwan chuckles at sooyoung’s awkward acceptance. “i’m just helping. kim-daeri and choi-gwajangnim don’t seem like they will, so someone on the team’s gotta stick up for you.”

“don’t put me under pressure,” sooyoung whines playfully. “you make me not want to let you down.”

“listen. you’ve got this.” the soft rub of her arm that follows makes her stiffen ever so slightly. “if worst comes to worst, we can grab a hotel room and fix things up in an all-nighter or two, anyway.”

“a, a hotel room,” sooyoung repeats unsteadily. of course, she knows what that _actually_ means. it’s not uncommon for teams to rent hotel rooms out in a pinch- having places to sleep and/or lounge, on top of plenty of space for project materials and boards, makes them excellent emergency headquarters during crunch time.

if she had to be stuck in a hotel room alone with seungwan, though, she might just pass away. or do some other equally inadvisable thing.

“ah. did that sound a little…” seungwan’s face colors as she catches on, albeit maybe to a different idea than sooyoung did just now. “i’d bring some help along, of course. two heads aren’t enough to put together if your project’s in trouble.”

“right- thanks,” sooyoung repeats. she probably sounds like a broken record at this point. “that’s really kind of you.”

“you just make sure you get that early start,” seungwan insists, and then she spots the small japanese restaurant she’d been so happy to take sooyoung to, and the conversation mercifully moves on to food once more.

somewhere in between ordering their dinner and watching seungwan sheepishly dab splattered broth off her chin, the realization sinks in properly.

this is real. something substantial, not just a fun little indulgence sooyoung can pass through without consequence, enjoying a few warm flutters before it fades and she moves on. she likes seungwan. 

really likes her.

they’ve spent months working together now. seeing each other all the time, in the office and out. actually sort of getting to know each other, like proper friends who don’t only care about each other’s business when they happen to be in the same building.

no rush of dread accompanies the thought, although there’s a slight… shame to it. or maybe just embarrassment. 

she’s spent months willingly going out to places after work, even when she’d much rather run home and sleep, without figuring out she might have the slightest crush on the person constantly dragging her away from her warm, comfortable bed. 

classic park sooyoung smarts. this is the kind of person every top corporation would just love to have on the team.

she doesn’t know what to do once it’s in her head. she can’t get rid of it, but she doesn’t particularly want to, either. at least now she can’t deny what’s really going on.

the buzz of her phone in her bag presents a welcome excuse to get some space. sooyoung fumbles around for it the second she feels the vibration, yanking it out unceremoniously enough her arm nearly knocks her drink all over the table.

“gotta take this,” she mumbles, and gets up and excuses herself without looking at seungwan any further, cheeks pink and heart going just a little too fast as she strides away in the direction of bathroom.

  
  


the SM Group is not a place committed to focusing on people.

things are all about business here, and that means commitment to your job instead. that means consciously making work a priority. it also means making sure that if you’re seeing someone, you’re seeing the _right_ person.

what did they call it in the job application? “close personal relationships with anyone tied to company customers, business partners, suppliers, or competitors.” all could be potential conflicts of interest, so all are strictly prohibited unless you want to face consequences.

now, no one has ever said anything about relationships _within_ the company, but the unspoken philosophy of it is much the same. their hectic business demands focus, and blossoming workplace romance is possibly the ultimate form of distraction. almost every fellow employee sooyoung has met is older, and already in a long-term relationship with someone entirely outside their company’s scope, if not married with kids. younger new hires like her are about the only exception to the rule.

just sooyoung’s luck that she’s caught a hopeless case of feelings for one of the office’s few truly eligible singles.

she certainly not the only one aware of seungwan’s on-the-market status. she’s heard whispers near the break room, caught snatches of conversation in the lobby or when she’s out with the guys from her intern cohort. surreptitious words about how deputy manager son, yeah, her in the sales division, would be very... _nice_ , without her insurmountable, no-nonsense barrier of professionalism.

but it feels like they have to be lying, somehow. call her biased, but sooyoung doesn’t know how they don’t see it. or even how she hadn’t seen it, at first. because it’s written all over seungwan’s being how personable she is- round, expressive eyes, a vivacious energy to every one of her little gestures and looks. the obvious care she gives to anything thrown her way. 

as a person, she’s plenty approachable. easy to ask for help, or even just for an honest opinion. surely you’d have to be blind to not notice.

“son-daerinim.”

“yeah?”

the familiar sound of rolling wheels on an office chair comes just before seungwan appears by her side. it makes sooyoung hesitate for a moment, though she isn’t sure why. 

“um,” she stutters, “could you double check these numbers for me? i feel like i’m missing something.”

“ah, sure. let’s take a look…”

the faint smell of perfume blooms into something paralyzing as seungwan leans straight over her shoulder, eyes narrowed at the number-filled spreadsheet on her screen. sooyoung has never managed to place the scent, let alone worked up the nerve to ask what it is, but it’s gentle and pleasantly sweet. fine and difficult to catch unless you’re up quite close. 

seungwan’s makeup has faded a little now, towards the tail end of their workday. the fringe covering her forehead is neat as ever, though, the rest of her dark hair falling gently about her shoulders, and as sooyoung’s eyes wander distractedly over the sight, her eyes catch on the soft jut of seungwan’s collarbone.

just for a fleeting moment, her mind wanders. lapses into imagining- how might it feel to the touch? curving warmly under her fingers, under-

wait...

wait.

_what?_

“calculations look okay,” seungwan says by her ear. sooyoung startles like something just exploded there instead, earning her a quizzical look as her manager straightens, pulling back. “you alright?”

“fine,” sooyoung says hurriedly. “it’s nothing. i’ll print this then,” she insists, bolting upright as she clicks through the appropriate print sequence in record time. “just a second.”

the time idling in front of the printer as it spits out the data is just barely enough for her to recover, both from the strange shock from moments ago, and the probing eyes from a few cubicles over still lingering on her after her outburst.

now more than ever, she wishes the sales team two desks weren’t sandwiched squarely between the territories of team one and team three. there’s double the amount of nosy officemates to deal with.

seungwan doesn’t seem too suspicious of the incident, only giving her one last curious look before returning to her work. it feels like both a blessing and a curse that, for all the sharp business acumen she has, she barely seems to register any of sooyoung’s little slip-ups. but sooyoung can already feel the memory pressing down on her like a two-ton weight regardless, and it’s barely been five minutes.

this is perhaps not a good sign. her thoughts up until now haven’t been _distracting._ seungwan would just… be on her mind. not in a way that would get in the way of her working. only as a soft, vague presence, hovering just behind all her many other concerns.

if sooyoung is starting to think about things like her manager’s nice, well-defined collarbones, it’s only a matter of time before she starts thinking about everything else. the warmth of her words when she isn’t putting on her “client interaction” voice. the pouty, soft-looking lips that form those exact words. the gleam in her eyes sooyoung could swear is especially for her, even though she’s probably reading way too far into it.

fuck. now the thoughts have all appeared anyway. she hadn’t even meant to-

“fuck,” she mumbles, only to freeze in her seat and hope that nobody on her team just heard her curse on the job.

not that cursing is something they really care about here. the distant yelling she can hear from a disgruntled team leader elsewhere on the floor is proof enough of that.

which leads her to the even worse thought of her own team leader. god, he had better not catch on to so much as a _hint_ of what’s happening in her head right now. she’d never live it down. might as well quit the company in advance.

deep down, though, coiling unpleasantly, is a fear that makes sooyoung balk even more than potentially getting fired- the thought of having to stay with the company if she ends up messing up the best thing she has going for her here.

at least if seungwan ever found out about her little crush, she tells herself, she would do her best to be a good sport about it.

really, she wouldn’t expect anything less.

  
  


as of late, sooyoung doesn’t have much energy left in her once she gets home. there’s just enough to grab a quick bite to eat, wash up and get into some comfortable clothes, and summarily pass out. and there certainly isn’t any reason to let herself be alone with her thoughts for too long.

yerim changes things a little. because now she is alone with her thoughts, lying in her dark room and unable to fall asleep the one night she’d gotten home at a decently early time, but she doesn’t have to let herself suffer like she normally would. she can go and bother somebody else instead.

sooyoung swings herself upright with a huff. fumbles around blindly on the floor until she finds her slippers, and makes the ten-second shuffle over to yerim’s room. though no sound emits from inside, there’s light visible under the closed door- she’s awake. perfect.

taking a second to remember her manners, she makes sure to knock first, waiting for the approval of the casual _come in_ that follows. once she pushes the door open, though, she stops for a moment, taken aback.

“um...”

yerim lies in her bed of blankets on the floor, unmoving. on her is a full-coverage skincare sheet mask, shrouding every bit of her face. there are even flaps on it so you can cover up your eyes.

which all looks rather ghoulish when you don’t walk in the room expecting to see it. she practically looks faceless at a quick glance.

“what are you doing?” sooyoung questions. “you look like a dead body.”

“i’m not dead, i’m moisturizing.” yerim pats the blanket beside her, eyes still closed. face still fixed in a tranquilly blank expression, but for the way her lips curve into a crafty smile. like she already knows exactly what thoughts are bouncing around in sooyoung’s mind. “come sit, unnie.”

“i’m starting to feel like i should force you to share my bed,” sooyoung complains, even as she settles down next to yerim on top of the thick blanket, which, to be fair, was designed for the exact purpose of making it comfortable to sleep on the floor. “you’re really fine spending nights like this?”

“it’s way nicer than it looks, actually. irons out my posture.” yerim shrugs as best she can. “and i basically ambushed you and invaded your house, so i kind of don’t want to mooch off you any more than i already have.”

“steal it whenever i’m not home, then. it’s not mooching if i say it’s okay.” sooyoung shifts, getting comfy. “your dad called last week, by the way. i’ve been so busy i forgot to tell you, but it wasn’t that serious, so...”

“did he?” yerim responds. her voice is unaffected, just bland enough to sound a little too deliberate. “he didn’t call me. anything interesting?”

“not really. just asked how you were doing, small talk stuff.”

“mm.”

“is there something up with you? because that surprised me, you know. i was out with my manager that night and- ”

“you guys are going out together now?”

sooyoung resists the urge to roll her eyes for a second before remembering yerim can’t see her. so she rolls them with all the passive aggressive exasperation she can muster instead. just to enjoy it for a moment.

“we get dinner _all the time_ , thank you very much,” she corrects. “it’s office tradition. anytime you want to chat with someone, you go out for a drink. you know how it is.”

“right,” yerim says skeptically. “and you’re sure you’re not interested in my offer to help you speed your situation along.”

sooyoung shudders.

“i’d rather not imagine what you _helping_ me looks like.”

“fair enough,” yerim concedes, twitching for a moment as her phone starts to chime with an alarm tone. “hold on.”

as yerim sits up and peels off her face mask, sooyoung stares off at the wall in front of her, listening to her friend pat at her dewy, now-glowing face. “yerim-ah, i think you cursed me. i really do like her.”

“knew it.”

“rub it in later,” she whines. “what am i supposed to do?”

“you’re asking me?” yerim snickers, though her expression turns into something a little more like a wince. “i have, like, no good romantic experience. you must really be in trouble.”

“it didn’t feel like i liked her _before_ ,” sooyoung grouses, “but then you just had to make me think about it, and now i’m completely screwed. have you ever considered _thinking_ before you say things like that?”

“you’re park freaking sooyoung,” yerim counters, her mask now disposed of. “you’re super pretty, and nice, and you don’t take anybody’s shit, and, and- ” she throws her damp hands up, having seemingly exhausted her easiest selling points. “and you smacked around that one boy who called me ugly when i was eight! that’s the type of cool person you are, okay? really good girlfriend material.”

oh, if only the kid knew exactly how much shit she was forcing herself to take at the office.

cute, though, how yerim still looks up to her a little after all this time. even if she disguises it as making fun of her more often than not.

“not everyone sees me the way you have. the way you _do._ ” sooyoung sighs, letting herself drop onto her back. “she’s my manager, i can’t just ask her if she likes me. this isn’t school. if she’s not into it, it’s going to get really awkward for me really fast.”

_and i can’t afford losing the most helpful friend i’ve got at work._

“but you keep telling me that she’s really, really nice.” yerim’s eyebrows scrunch up in thought. “like, she totally sounds nice enough to take a little bit of a chance on.”

is she, really?

rather than bickering back at her, sooyoung stares quietly up at the ceiling, mentally going over the facts.

she knows a lot of things about son seungwan, built up from countless little conversations over lunch breaks and evening outings, brushes in the break room and chatting on the way to see clients. like how her glasses are only to keep the monitors they always stare at from frying her eyes, but she’s so dutiful she wears them all day. or that she takes her bubble tea with 50% sugar. that she likes playing music in her cubicle during late nights alone in the office. 

but also that she doesn’t date much. hasn’t at all, for at least a year or two. and understandably so- at such a relatively early point in their careers, the job still comes first, cutthroat as things are.

that makes for some pretty tough odds to go up against. giving up hope might be the safer thing to do if sooyoung wants to keep her job, and her sanity.

but then all of her very unruly thoughts come to mind, every little thing about seungwan that’s been making her feel like an infatuated teenager lately. say that yerim’s optimism for her isn’t so misplaced. say that, maybe, she stood a meaningful chance with seungwan, and she just hasn’t figured it out yet.

would it be so bad to let herself have a shot?

the way her heart flutters at the thought unfortunately tells her everything she needs to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me here! send me comments, feedback, anything you'd like:  
> [ [twitter](https://twitter.com/superheroau_twt) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/superheroau) ]


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess what: we've got fanart! feast your eyes upon some wonderful [manager son...](https://twitter.com/TheStinakat/status/1235763106435002370) and enjoy this update!

the roof is cold today. the wind has a bit of a bite to it, and sooyoung can see a faint cloud puff from her lips with every breath. but really, it’s just what she wants. the office has been feeling stuffy as of late, and the crisp air is refreshingly bracing. helps to clear her thoughts of demanding higher-ups and concerningly dodgy roommates.

a few minutes have already passed, and she hasn’t started shivering yet, so she’ll stick it out here a little longer. maybe it can give her the energy to soldier through the last of her day’s work.

being up here makes you feel a little like a character in a drama. you can survey the city like it’s yours to explore, yours to own. but you can feel small too. there’s nothing like being a sobering 23 stories up to remind you how you’re just one person among so very many. 

a dot of icy chill suddenly blooms against her cheek, and sooyoung winces in surprise, yanked out of her sentimental thoughts. when her hand comes up to brush at the spot, it comes away wet.

a tiny, almost imperceptible impact against her hair is what makes the realization sink in- it’s water.

it’s raining.

sooyoung gets herself out of there just in time. not too much later, fat droplets are pattering firmly against the windows of the building, the sky darkened with clouds, and she breathes a sigh of relief at her paranoid urge to bring an umbrella today having paid off.

certain others aren’t so lucky. her team leader lingers behind at the office that evening, muttering about extra work he had to do anyway, but sooyoung knows exactly what’s going on just from how he glances with distaste at the dripping window by his desk. best of luck to him with waiting out the rain, but that’s his personal problem. 

she makes sure to make her own way down to the ground floor right on time. no spare tasks lying around, nothing left in her day that could possibly chain her to her desk- this sort of weather is meant to be enjoyed from the warmth of your home and nowhere else. evidently everyone else is thinking the same thing, as it seems to be every employee for themselves in the rush to escape the SM building, elevators cramped and lobby bustling with people on their way out.

as she approaches the front of the place, though, pushing open one of the lobby’s glass doors, she can make out seungwan’s small, familiar figure pacing around at the head of the stairs outside. like she’s trying to calculate something. weighing odds in her mind.

her hands are empty of any umbrella, an apprehensive hunch to her shoulders.

surely she isn’t thinking of dashing into the rain all on her own.

“son-daerinim!” sooyoung calls, alarmed, and seungwan freezes where she stands with an almost comical immediacy. it gives sooyoung enough time to hurry over, catching her manager firmly by the shoulder. “you shouldn’t even think about running around without cover in this weather,” she chides, letting herself relish the ever so brief moment to be the scolder and not the scolded.

“got to get home somehow.” seungwan’s lips quirk up hopefully. “dare i hope that you’ll shield me like a loyal junior?”

“of course.” sooyoung can’t help the silly grin that eases onto her face- can’t help smiling around seungwan like a fool these days. “i’m going as far as the subway station. you’re right around there, right?”

“the bus stop,” seungwan confirms. “just around the corner.”

“then, um, should we- ” sooyoung motions lamely at the umbrella in her hand. “you know, go…”

“together?”

“yeah! that.” 

she fumbles a little getting the umbrella open, hears a soft breath of amusement puff from seungwan’s lips as she finally unfurls the thing to its full circumference. when they step out into the street, icy rain starts to drip down onto her as she makes sure her manager stays squarely under their shared umbrella, but it’s fine.

honestly, she hardly even notices it that much.

they’re close now, edging against each other as they chat while trying to keep themselves dry. if sooyoung leaned just the right way, craned her neck a little, they would practically be cheek to cheek. 

and that wouldn’t be so bad. seungwan has cute cheeks, round and soft-looking. whenever she’s ticked off, which actually happens more often than you’d think, they puff out a little in a way that makes you think of a chipmunk. it’s not even that easy to spot, but sooyoung still notices, as she’s ended up observing most everything about her, and it sort of cancels out any sort of scare factor her anger might have yet had.

“maybe i should bake,” seungwan muses, in the middle of thinking out loud about her holiday plans- which sooyoung herself happens to have none of, unfortunately, other than meeting up with her relatives for the new year. “i don’t know if i have enough confidence to do that for family, though.”

“oh, that reminds me of those brownies,” sooyoung sighs, “the ones you made for my birthday,” perhaps a little too dreamily. it’s not unwarranted, though. if she somehow hadn’t realized her feelings for seungwan by then, the damn brownies would have gotten her either way. 

she couldn’t even remember when she had ever mentioned her birthday in front of anyone at work, but of course seungwan just knew, somehow. and of course she’d had a plastic container of little pieces of _heaven_ ready to slip sooyoung when their teammates were off elsewhere. 

all a very convincing argument for how it’s entirely possible, in fact, even likely, that sooyoung has managed to fall for the closest there is to the perfect woman.

“you still think about those?” seungwan’s eyes squint with part embarrassment, part pride. “i thought they were a pretty rushed job, personally. there weren’t even all that many, and i’m out of practice…”

“son-daerinim, i wouldn’t lie to you. that’s probably against company policy, or something.” sooyoung blinks at her earnestly. “they were great, and you should make them again just for me.” _please. give me the sweets._

“i guess… maybe for another special occasion.” seungwan looks flustered at the attention, as she often does. her gaze wavers as it wanders around anywhere but sooyoung’s eyes, in the sort of way that suggests she’s searching intently for another topic of conversation. 

and she does seem to spot something after a few seconds, since her eyes briefly light up before her face settles into a deliberately dour frown.

“you’ve been getting wet.”

sooyoung shrugs at her manager’s disapproval, holding back a twitch as cold water seeps further into the sleeve of her jacket.

“don’t worry about it- ”

“don’t try to play the hero now, sooyoung-ssi,” seungwan tuts, catching her hesitation, “we can both fit if we squeeze,” and proceeds to link their arms snugly together, pulling her all the way under the umbrella.

and firmly against her manager’s soft, welcoming side.

“okay,” sooyoung grumbles, trying her best to sound like she’s reluctantly lost this battle, and not like she wants nothing more than to melt helplessly against seungwan’s shoulder right now. “fine. we can do it like this.”

their faces are so close. _again._ even more than before. sooyoung knows, somewhere in the back of her mind, that if she were to turn to look down at seungwan’s cheerful face right now, she might do something extremely unadvisable. 

but she does it anyway. eye contact is polite, after all, even if her heart does stutter in her chest when their eyes meet, seungwan giving her a probing look.

“your hand feels so cold,” comes a disapproving mutter. there’s always an oddly serious intensity to seungwan’s voice when she says things like that. like she just can’t stand the thought of sooyoung experiencing anything other than absolute comfort in all ways.

“help me warm up, then.”

it’s the silliest thing sooyoung can recall herself saying, and her cheeks bloom with bright heat the second the words leave her mouth. but it’s surprising just how little she cares about any of that when seungwan’s eyes crinkle up merrily at the challenge, a warm hand clasping easily around sooyoung’s own where she grips the umbrella handle.

“i actually have a good reputation as a human heater,” seungwan says in a too-loud stage whisper, playing at confiding a business secret in her. “bae-daeri swears by my abilities. so i think i’ve got you covered.”

“i didn’t take bae-daerinim for the skinship type,” sooyoung remarks, doing her best to focus on that entirely irrelevant point instead of seungwan meticulously squeezing at her hand, like she’s trying to massage the circulation into her bit by bit.

“she isn’t.” seungwan laughs. “but if bae joohyun hates one thing, it’s being cold. she’ll take any source of heat she can get.”

she looks really pretty right now. that’s sooyoung’s first thought as she lets herself have another look at her. her second thought is that there are a few stray drops of rain clinging to seungwan’s glasses that she’s suddenly very antsy to wipe off.

but the bus stop appears in their sights in the next moment, and seungwan blanches as she catches sight of a green bus pulling in, doors hissing open.

“that’s mine,” she yelps, “thank you so much, sooyoung-ssi, bye!” and tears herself away. she nearly trips over several cracks in the wet pavement in her haste, and sooyoung is about a second away from trying to manhandle her into the bus before she precariously rights herself, making it into the line to board just in time.

 _you’re so damn hopeless_ , a little voice giggles in sooyoung’s head, sounding more than a little like someone she knows, but sooyoung smiles her usual very hopeless smile anyway while seungwan gives her a beaming wave in farewell.

  
  


for all the company’s emphasis on the collective, on making sure to think of your team and the organization as a whole first, it still sure is easy to get wrapped up in your own business.

just starting any sort of venture at work is difficult, especially a properly realized proposal like the first-year project. sooyoung has a plan or two taking shape in her mind, but there are still a few parties she has to wait to hear from if she wants to get anything in motion. so now she has to settle for this sort of apprehensive limbo instead. knowing the full list of steps that will lie ahead of her, wanting to do _something_ , but being… stuck.

she wakes up slightly anxious lately. off-center, a bit of nervous energy welling up deep down. it doesn’t interfere with her days too much, so she can move past it well enough, but she doesn’t miss the fact that it’s not exactly healthy. or that it may or may not mount into too much to handle if she isn’t careful.

oh well. she’ll just cross that bridge whenever she gets to it.

her and seungwan have drifted a little in the past few weeks. they see each other all the time, so it’s not like they’re deprived of each other or anything. things are just busier. less present than usual. 

it’s funny- sooyoung has gotten so thoroughly used to paying attention to her manager, that not doing so feels like a little piece is missing from her day-to-day life.

but she gets actual work to do lately, which she puts all her focus into getting done. and every task checked off her to-do list is one more thing son seungwan can’t try to intervene and help with, in that self-sacrificing way she usually does, so sooyoung has her own very special kind of motivation to get through each day.

the subject of sooyoung’s many thoughts is staring blank and dispassionate at one wall of her cubicle when sooyoung arrives one morning, glasses sitting discarded on her desk. “‘morning,” she says absently, and sooyoung echoes the greeting, as is practically automatic at this point. while she settles into her workstation, going through all her routine motions, she takes the opportunity to sneak glances at her cubicle neighbor.

seungwan looks tired.

to be fair, it’s not often that she _doesn’t_ look at least a little tired. but it’s clear that the pace they’re being worked at is taking its toll once more, chipping away at her mask of perfect professionalism. like they’ve come right back to the overwork stage of the weary office cycle.

her manager’s face is relatively bare compared to the usual, and her short hair looks oddly disheveled, a little chunk sticking out at the back. instinctively, sooyoung’s hand rises to fix it as she notices, managing to draw seungwan’s attention.

“what’s up?” she says, giving a few slow blinks in her direction, and sooyoung feels her heart launch into an intensely distracting tap dancing routine. 

“your hair,” she says uncertainly. motions at the problem area as best she can. “it’s…”

“eh?” seungwan frowns, starting to pat down the back of her head blindly. it gets a little hard to watch after a few unsuccessful seconds, so sooyoung intervenes, reaching out to carefully smooth down seungwan’s very nice, soft hair. which is slightly damp to the touch.

“you seem a little out of it,” she remarks, careful but unable to fully hide her concern. seungwan gives her a sigh of confirmation.

“long night,” she says with a yawn. “i just freshened up at the sauna earlier. guess i missed a spot when i was brushing my hair...”

“ah…”

that’s a new one. not the practice itself, exactly- she knows plenty of people on the 14th floor have done it at least once or twice. it’s a common feature in office horror stories, since the 24-hour sauna and bathhouse down the street is where people usually try to get themselves together after harrowing all-nighters. but she’s not sure she can remember seungwan ever having gone there before.

because she would certainly remember coming face to face this particular son seungwan, all soft and fresh-faced. following her with drowsy eyes like a puppy who’s just been gently shaken awake.

“not to be demanding, but, um.” seungwan gives her a weak grin. “would you mind grabbing me a cup of coffee?”

“i was going to get some for myself anyway!” sooyoung scrambles to her feet with near military speed. “sure thing.”

“how would i live without you, sooyoung-ssi,” seungwan breathes out in relief, sinking with relieved anticipation into her well-worn desk chair. 

“i suppose you just wouldn’t,” sooyoung shoots back over her shoulder, and feels something in her settle down once she hears a hearty laugh in response, because at least now she knows seungwan is still alive in there.

“i suppose not,” her manager agrees. there’s a bemused, conceding note to her voice, almost like she really has learned something new. 

(sooyoung can only fidget her way through how she warms at the thought as she makes her way to the break room for their morning pick-me-up.)

  
  


solitude on the weekends, in pre-yerim days, is something sooyoung didn’t realize she’d miss out on. but even if the option of hiding away from all of humanity had certainly been nice, she also quite enjoys now having someone around if she needs it. god knows that without someone to talk to about seungwan, she’d probably have gone insane by now.

she can’t rule out the possibility of yerim going crazy either, though. there might be only so long one could listen to sooyoung go on about how stupidly _good_ her manager is at everything, from conducting business negotiations to just being nice to her.

maybe that’s why yerim hasn’t been paying her the same sort of intent attention she did a few months ago.

“i’m just so freaking _tired_ all the time.”

“i’m sure.”

“are you even listening to me?” sooyoung fusses. she tugs at the cord to yerim’s earphones where they sit together on the apartment’s couch, some variety show clamoring on TV in the background. “whatever. i’ve even seen son-daerinim’s been spending nights at the sauna, and she normally gets all her work done before the day is out! like, can you believe- ”

“what?” yerim finally pulls a bud from her ear to give her a startled look, her phone no longer hogging her attention. “sorry, say that again?”

“seriously?”

“c’mon. i’ll listen.”

“well, _as i was saying_ , it’s been really busy at work.” sooyoung eyes her dubiously. “my manager unnie you’re so interested in has been working so much overtime, she goes to the sauna to rest instead of going home.”

“oh. okay.” yerim snickers, relaxing. “sorry, i thought you said you’d seen her _at_ the sauna.”

“no? why would i- ” 

sooyoung takes a moment to collect her thoughts before speaking, because she is not allowing herself to think about her manager in a hot tub under any circumstances. that is just not happening. the pencil skirt was already hard enough to free herself from- _weeks_ of hard work that she doesn’t have the mental strength to go through with again.

“i see you think i’m as pervy as you are,” she finally says, unamused.

“it happens to guys all the time, though,” yerim informs her. “i heard from my friends with office jobs that it’s, like, the most common awkward moment you want to avoid at all costs. so i thought it maybe could have happened.”

“okay, i’ve heard that too, but- it’s _different_ for guys.” sooyoung’s face screws up as she tries to grasp for the right words, but not envision the situation in her head. “they- they have less that they need to look away from.”

“that is true,” yerim concedes, lips pursing in thought. “very, very true.”

“anyways, i wouldn’t follow her to the sauna like a creep, i have _principles_. this is harassment.” sooyoung puffs up, brandishing an accusatory finger in yerim’s direction. “yeah! i’m coming after you for slandering my character. you can say goodbye to your little gamer room.”

“good luck with that,” is yerim’s dryly amused response, but she seems effectively shut up by sooyoung’s next change of subject.

“you know, while we’re on the topic of your room,” sooyoung continues, a hint of triumph starting to come into her voice, “i’ve been meaning to ask you. what really brought you here? to my place?” she raises a questioning eyebrow. “there’s more to this than i know. i’m right about that, aren’t i?”

“what are you talking about?” yerim’s face twists with a look of slightly forced incredulity. “no...”

“it’s been a few months too long for the renovation excuse to keep working,” sooyoung points out tactfully. “and you know i trust you, so i haven’t pushed. but if you’re going to keep living with me, we should be honest with each other.”

yerim shifts then, face dropping sullenly.

“fine.”

she says it in the sort of voice that lets sooyoung know she’s won, but the victory feels rather anticlimactic, even after what yerim follows up with.

“my parents found out i was talking to a girl. you know. _talking_ to her.”

well.

she’s not sure what she expected to hear, but that wasn’t really it.

a few seconds pass with bated breath as sooyoung attempts to process this brand new development. 

“wait,” she starts, “if they kicked you out over that, i swear i’ll- ”

“they didn’t!” yerim cries immediately. “they- unnie, sooyoung unnie, can you calm down?” she flaps a hand insistently in sooyoung’s direction, looking a little panicked at the anger she’s accidentally awakened. “they didn’t kick me out, weren’t even mad at me or anything! come on, you _know_ my parents.” 

sooyoung pauses at that. draws back from the indignant energy that had started to rapidly well up inside her, and allows her frown to relax into one of confusion rather than rage.

“then why…?”

“i don’t know. i guess i was embarrassed? ‘cause what happened was- i left my phone lying around at home, and my mom saw it light up with a, um. more than friendly text. from an unnie i know.” 

oh.

_oh._

yerim’s face reddens severely, and sooyoung is suddenly reminded of every moment she’d ever spent teasing slash consoling kim yerim over her silly, head-over-heels crushes in middle school. she finds herself smiling, endeared at the thought. with her worries effectively put aside, they’re now squarely in familiar territory. territory where she’s got the upper hand as yerim’s lifelong helpful unnie.

taking potshots of embarrassment at each other is practically their love language at this point, anyway.

“just look at you being all grown up,” she coos. yerim squawks in protest as sooyoung reaches out to grab her, mussing her hair with the customary playful roughness.

“hey! _unhand me_ \- ”

“you’ve always been like my kid sis, yerimie, you know i’ve got to mess with you- ”

“ugh! i hate you.” yerim squirms her way free enough to make a face at her. “see, now you know there’s nothing wrong. really. happy?”

“i believe you.”

“i just felt _nervous_ after my parents talked to me about it. like i was gonna jump out of my skin anytime they looked at me. so i guess i ran away from home for basically no reason.” yerim sighs, looking rather aggravated at having to voice it all out loud. “it’s fucking dumb, isn’t it. but they weren’t worried once they found out i’d be crashing at yours, and it was about time for me to spread my wings properly, or whatever it is.”

sooyoung snorts in amusement. “miss independent.”

“yeah, yeah. my parents should be focusing on my sisters now, anyway,” yerim continues pensively, “not spending all their time worrying about me. or my dating life.”

“that’s what friends are for,” sooyoung reminds her, giving her friend’s side a teasing prod. “when can i meet your nice unnie? if you guys are still talking, that is.”

“oh, we do talk,” yerim assures. “it’s going well. but,” she adds, “i think you’ve got your own problems to deal with first,” and cackles and darts away as sooyoung promptly grabs a couch cushion to throw at her.

  
  


as the year starts drawing to a close, from the moment that sooyoung steps onto the 14th floor, she can sense a certain tension to the already frenetic air at the office. when she reaches their desk on a hectic day in early december, a few of their things have been unceremoniously pushed around to accommodate chairs at the table in the middle of their office space, which is piled high with... 

cards. 

lots and lots of cards and company stationery, all with an SM Group logo stamped neatly in the corner.

the slow appearance of tinsel and christmas lights around the building’s lobby had already started to clue her in, but seeing all of _that_ when she walked into the office this morning had confirmed it. 

it seems that the final leg of year-end preparations have finally begun.

sooyoung and her team members aren’t the special ones at the center of it all, though. that honor is reserved for everyone else that they work with: the regular customers, company partners, and suppliers that go through sales team two. all of them need at least a card, if not more. some of the most valued ones even warrant- 

“gifts!” mr. choi claps his hands together. the other three of them crowded around the table stiffen with surprise at the abrupt sound, and mr. kim mutters a curse under his breath as he notices a line of ink from his startled twitch across the note he had just finished. “we should get those out of the way quickly, while we’re already doing this.”

for a moment, there is only silence as his head turns slowly in sooyoung’s direction.

“park sooyoung-ssi,” he starts, and sooyoung nods, resignedly obedient, before he can even finish his sentence. she knows well enough by now that as the lowest-ranking on the team, she might as well be the errand girl.

“i’ll take her,” a voice interrupts, and she pauses in the middle of getting up to give seungwan a quizzical look.

“you’re always taking such good care of our newbie, son-daeri,” mr. choi remarks. his tone is rather snide, if sooyoung may say so herself, but it’s not a no. seungwan’s face remains placidly professional at the little dig. completely undisturbed, like a pool of still water.

“we’ll be back in an hour,” she says smoothly, and without further ado, they set off.

when they reach their destination, the nearest shopping center, sooyoung quickly realizes she’s not the most knowledgeable in the realm of corporate gift-giving. the mall is… large, and very shiny. and there are all these chicly uniformed people who keep trying to coerce them into buying things unsuited to being business casual christmas presents. deciding what to give someone is already hard enough without all of that in the way, let alone a ticking timer of 60 minutes.

“i feel in over my head,” she says helplessly, scanning the stores around them for anything worth checking out. “where are we even supposed to go?”

seungwan grins at her- still a sight you’d be quite hard-pressed to catch in the office, and also still a sight that makes sooyoung feel a bit like she’s melting into the floor. “see, this is why i came with you. come on.”

thankfully, seungwan does seem to know where she’s going, forging ahead with purpose as they walk a ways further, approaching what seems to be a far end of the mall.

“the herbal extracts are always a hit,” seungwan advises, and gently guides her in the direction of a gleaming, modern medicinal shop setup in a corner. “foreign clients usually eat it up since it’s all traditional korean, makes them feel they’ve got something exotic. i learned that from kim-daeri on our team when i started here.”

she wanders away the second they walk into the store, leaving sooyoung to be caught by an employee who will seemingly stop at nothing to convince her of red ginseng’s “magical effects” on aging constitution and virility. in the end, she only manages to fend her off completely by agreeing to take a few packets of it off the store’s hands.

“you abandoned me,” she whines once seungwan finds her again. “son-daerinim, i thought you were supposed to be looking after me.”

“no need to get all cute with me, sooyoung-ssi. i was just getting our job done so i could get you out of here.” seungwan pats her back, handing over her plastic-bagged prize. “good job holding that lady back, though. couldn’t have finished so fast without you.”

sooyoung pouts, but takes the rather heavy bag to peer at the contents. inside are some squat jars full of tiny brown pellets, rattling softly as they’re jostled around.

“korean mountain ginseng extract,” she reads off the label, eyes widening slightly at the price. “for energizing the body and boosting the immune system.”

“swallow a pinch every morning and it’ll wake you right up! great for businessmen.” seungwan chuckles. “it’s awfully bitter for something so expensive, but the courtesy of the gift is what really matters, so. we can just put it on the company card and forget about it.”

“and what about these?” sooyoung holds up her own forced purchases. “i’ve got no use for red ginseng.”

“oh, we can slip them in somewhere.” seungwan waves it off, unconcerned. “they’ll just think it’s, like, a little extra to their herbal care package. it’s not like we’ve got anyone else to give them to, anyway.”

“no.” sooyoung blushes despite herself. “no boyfriend or anything… plus, i don’t think my dad would appreciate it.”

“good- ” seungwan clears her throat hastily. “i mean, you know, it would be kind of awkward to give it to a boyfriend, anyway. might send the wrong message.”

“right.”

they stare at each other for a few seconds, faces both tinting a little bit pink.

she can’t be imagining this. there’s just no way, is there? surely sooyoung isn’t so in her own head that she can’t recognize plain signs of… affection. or attraction, even, although that second word overwhelms her a good deal more than the first one.

but what if they _aren’t_ signs? what if she’s misreading? or has just never had a truly, considerate down to the bone friend before in her life? her mind won’t stop whispering caveats to her. 

sooyoung would like to call herself a realist, rather than a pessimist. but she’s so effectively distanced herself from romance over the last busy, busy couple of years, it’s become hard for her to tell herself what’s _real_ enough to believe, and what isn’t.

lately, it feels like all she’s really sure of is that she has no idea what she's going to do about her feelings.

  
  


the office is emptier than usual when sooyoung returns from her lunch break, tossing her empty ramen cup wearily into the nearest trash can. she’s noticed of a lot of her coworkers lingering around their meals, or being suspiciously late returning from their usual restaurants. they’ve hit the final week of the year, though, and that’s enough to get anyone dragging their feet. _sluggish_ \- that’s the word for how things feel. everyone being reluctant to work despite also being very, very eager to leave. 

seungwan had jumped the gun and actually called off work for most of the week, citing family-related reasons. sooyoung doesn’t really think she needed to cite any reason, considering she hasn’t seen her manager take so much as a single vacation day since she started working here. but she’s sure that she’s as mentally prepared to steamroll through the few days she has left, even without seungwan doing her usual beacon of encouragement thing.

the first day of the new year happens to lie on a friday this time around, so there’s a three-day weekend to anticipate; plenty of time to both check in with family and take some long-awaited rest for herself. the sooner she makes it there, the better. with seungwan having left early halfway through today, there’s no longer a point in being in the office a second longer than she needs to be, anyway. 

as she settles at her desk, intent on gathering up her focus, she’s surprised by her phone buzzing with a text from the woman she was just thinking of. they don’t text about personal things all that often, with much of their chat history consisting of mundane work conversations, but it is always nice to hear from her.

(and it’s cute how seungwan rambles over text the same way she does face to face, but sooyoung would never let that little secret spill.)

as much she itches to respond immediately, there are some insistently worded emails demanding her attention. she forces herself to let her phone sit as it continues to hum against the table, glancing down at the screen with a faint smile as seungwan sends her a meandering chain of happy holiday wishes.

one of the notifications finally manages to catches her eye properly, and she gives in, opening up her texts fully to read the latest messages.

_[1:27 pm] miss son: i caught sight of somebody sneaking around our desks during lunch ㅇㅁㅇ right before i left! maybe the company has decided to be generous this year?_

_[1:28 pm] miss son: you know, it looked like they might have slipped something into one of your drawers…_

sooyoung’s brow furrows in confusion upon reading the words, quickly leaning to one side to start pulling open the small filing cabinets under her desk. they’ve been left untouched the last few days, since a lot of her recent work has been sending emails and setting up calls and meetings, and most documents of any actual importance to the team are with their team leader. it would kind of make sense someone tried hiding something in there as a surprise.

she happens to find the alleged present waiting in the very first one.

a paper plate from the break room sits in the middle with a single large, colorful object on it, nestled carefully on top of some long-abandoned scratch paper. but not just any old object. it’s a cookie, cut and frosted in the simple but recognizable shape of a christmas tree. the carefully etched icing outlines of it are speckled with painstaking dots of red and yellow and white, as if to resemble ornaments and decorative flecks of snow. 

squeezed in next to it is something topped with a sticky note, labeled _DO NOT TOUCH_ in big block letters.

sooyoung peels the note away to examine the card underneath, making a soft, confused sound to herself when she spots the SM Group’s logo printed on a corner in the back. this is weird. she’s pretty sure the company doesn’t leave low-level new hires complimentary christmas cards. they don’t even send the division leaders so much as a thank you note at the end of the year.

the card is of a familiar design, all red and green with _Merry Christmas!_ in glittery golden cursive across the front, that just screams of familiarly corporate insincerity. it exactly resembles the cards she spent a good hour or two tediously writing holiday wishes into not too long ago.

as sooyoung opens it, though, she realizes the writing inside it, seeming to get hastily smaller and smaller as the whole of the card fills with neatly pencilled-in letters, is anything but insincere.

right. of course the company isn’t responsible for this. instead, she’s been obliviously deceived by none other than son seungwan herself, which- how did she believe such a silly little lie for more than a second? “ _someone_ ” left something in her drawer. please.

perhaps she’s forgotten about seungwan’s playful streak a little too easily.

she reads the card, a hand gradually rising to her face as she flusters. then again. after the third run through it, she finds herself biting her lip, glancing around to make sure no one else is peeking, even though she knows full well nobody around her gives a damn about whatever she’s doing.

ugh. she can’t handle this. can’t handle what she’s feeling now. 

not without something sweet to distract her from it, at least.

“stupid,” she mutters to herself, red-faced, and sets the card back down on her desk as she takes a bite of her delicious little gift.

the delicate taste of brown sugar and icing practically melts against her tongue, the texture of it still wonderfully soft and chewy. it had to have been made last night, a day ago at the absolute most. and seungwan made sure to shelter it so it wouldn’t get spotted by any of their nosy officemates with a sweet tooth...

there are moments when you can taste that a little love really went into your food. the kind of genuine goodwill you just can’t fake, even if it’s probably not _that_ kind of love that sooyoung is getting a hint of.

or is it? she can certainly hope. there are too many little hopes already piling up for her to push aside for much longer, and nowadays, something in her has begun longing to dream bigger. wants to believe that she should take a break from doubting herself, and let good things happen to her. 

she has no doubt in her mind that son seungwan would be a very, very good thing indeed.

  
  


_park sooyoung-ssi! (belated) merry christmas ^^_

_i know just one cookie isn’t much, but i didn’t have time for brownies!! i had to steal company property just to give you a card, and then i wasn't even on time for christmas… i hope the exchange rate (1 big cookie = some brownies?) is fair enough to make up for it. i haven’t made something like this in a while, and getting the icing right was so hard. i feel a bit lacking, but i do hope you compliment your senior on a job well done when we see each other next. hehe_

_it takes a lot to hang in there in this place, but you’ve got the stuff, know what i’m sayin’~? you have a lot of strong points you don’t see. i know it’s hard, but if you’ll believe anyone, you’d believe me, right? i feel a lot of pride for you. like my kid has finally begun to blossom- uh oh, maybe that’s too much. but no matter what anyone says, you’ve worked very hard this year. vacation never lasts long enough here, but i hope you rest well during our short break! you can_ _make next_ _year your_ _year too…_

_\--your favorite manager (son seungwan)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me here! send me comments, feedback, anything you'd like:  
> [ [twitter](https://twitter.com/superheroau_twt) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/superheroau) ]


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for being patient! enjoy the read.

the phone is ringing again.

there have been a lot of phone calls the last few hours. company liaisons and partners all around the world seem to have been a bit all over the place today. why, it’s difficult to figure out.

as far as seungwan can tell, the stock market hasn’t crashed, and there have been no other disasters to speak of. maybe some days are just worse for everyone on earth than others.

she picks the phone up for what feels like the tenth time in the last hour or so, only to flinch as she’s greeted with a stream of urgent, thickly garbled words she can’t make heads or tails of. perhaps... russian? sounds like it might be russian.

dammit. her team counts on her for many appealing skills, but being the russian language person is not one of them. they don’t have partners in the area who are even active enough to sound so frazzled right now, and their russian guy, mr. kim, is currently ensnarled in a phone call of his own. 

a name ends up snagging her attention, though, and she quickly catches on to what her mystery caller is actually looking for.

“ _team one_ ,” she insists in pointed english, “ _you want to call team one_ ,” and musters up just enough of her frayed patience to recite the number to the next desk over, as loudly and clearly as possible. some of team one and team two’s contact numbers are quite similar, only off by a digit or two, so wrong numbers do happen every once in a while. but dealing with it right now somehow manages to feel like the world’s biggest annoyance.

to think it’s only ten in the morning, and she’s already at a point in her day where she actually lets out a sigh once she sets her desk phone back down.

she could really use a bit of a breather.

an unfortunate urge has been building up in her whenever she craves a break- seungwan can feel it rising to the surface yet again, becoming an ever-stronger habit. it’s not good for her, it’s not good for her, kind of weird, probably not healthy either, come on-

she gives in. leans back in her chair, and catches a familiar glimpse of silky black hair and her favorite side profile just past the shared wall of their cubicles.

she’s become very glad indeed that their desks are so neatly divided. otherwise, she might spend entirely too much time staring. 

“hi…?”

like she must be staring right now.

“hi,” she parrots back, trying to meet sooyoung’s bright, curious gaze without immediately giving herself away.

“can i help with something?”

“oh, um. no.”

she really needs a plan to get herself together.

“was just zoning out,” seungwan offers lamely, and for a long moment, sooyoung just _looks_ at her. she’s been looking at her a lot lately. the first time, seungwan had chalked it up to the sight of her fresh out of the local sauna’s hot tub after an all-nighter- skin dry, makeup below average, eyes puffy and dark from exhaustion. seeing her professional image in such shambles had probably been rather alarming for the both of them. and that’s not even mentioning all the times sooyoung’s keen eyes had caught her dozing off.

the staring had only continued since then, though. and then the _closeness_ had started, sooyoung’s brushes against her lingering for fractions of seconds that felt like hours, and her willowy frame always seeming to lean just enough in seungwan’s direction to throw her off.

none of it is sooyoung’s fault, of course. it only makes sense that she’d be comfortable enough around seungwan to let her air of unbothered detachment slip. that feeling between them is obviously pretty mutual. 

but it’s still getting a little hard to deal with.

a year ago, seungwan had been delighted when they’d announced that the next batch of interns would be coming. it had been a little dream of hers to have someone of her very own to guide and show the ropes, a rambling that seulgi was subject to countless times. 

(joohyun had been spared from most of it. gushing over such things in front of her own former mentor felt like a bit much, even if they had long since crossed the line from coworkers to friends.)

park sooyoung had ended up being everything she could have possibly wanted in a junior. young, whip-smart, hard-working. eager to learn and improve. but also so absolutely, unfairly gorgeous. 

because some kind of string just had to be attached. namely, the most beautiful woman in the office following her around with all the one-track determination of a freshly imprinted duckling, soft doe eyes fixed on her every move. 

the “most beautiful woman in the office” title getting handed to someone else isn’t meant with offense to joohyun, of course, who still makes for a knockout #2. seungwan just has to accept that privately, in her own _personal_ opinion, sooyoung has got joohyun beat. by a tiny little bit. 

you know, in her heart.

she can’t help but dread the point where this all comes crashing down around her. the inevitable moment where she just gives up on all attempt at rational action, and makes a decision she’ll regret.

and it certainly is only inevitable, now. if she’s being honest with herself, her professionalism has been fighting a losing battle with her homosexuality since the moment she laid eyes on park sooyoung in a perfectly tailored pantsuit. there was simply no recovering from that.

she’s still thinking about her great holiday fumble from a few weeks ago. tormented by it. god, a card. she wrote her a _card_ , addled with adrenaline from realizing what simple, sweet present she could pull through with on short notice, and didn’t even bother _proofreading_ it. just got swept away in her work, and left it in one of sooyoung’s desk drawers. no planning, no preparation other than a frenzied few hours of baking and overly enthusiastic frosting.

what a fucking disaster. could she have made herself any more obvious?

seungwan has had trouble pinning down when things got to this point, exactly. maybe it was during the internships, watching sooyoung mop the floor with a fellow intern during argument presentations. or maybe it was seeing sooyoung in her apartment that fateful night, just after their first week of proper work together. 

she had been draped over seungwan’s bed like she belonged there, face flushed and complaining that she wanted company- innocently, but persistently, demanding to not be left on her own. because being all alone in the dark had apparently been a very big concern at the time.

sooyoung’s voice that night, at that very moment, still rings perfectly clear in seungwan’s head. a wounded, mournful whine of _don’t gooo..._ that had been completely impossible to resist.

her expression had just been so damn sad. saying no to that face would have been like turning down a puppy.

the sprawl of sooyoung’s long legs had uncomfortably taken up the whole bed, her breath reeking of alcohol. she had burrowed into the crook of seungwan’s neck, thrown an arm unceremoniously over her stomach, and passed out in seconds.

and then they never spoke about it. ever. it’s been, what. almost a year? and they’ve never once mentioned it to each other in any sort of conversation. not that they have to, of course. if seungwan ever found herself cornered into talking about sleeping next to her very nice, very pretty friend and coworker, she would probably try to escape out of the nearest window.

really, it’s very understandable why sooyoung would never want to bring it up. if she never ended up remembering it, that would be even better, probably.

try as she might, seungwan can’t forget it. her bed has felt the slightest bit different since, and there are times when she catches herself imagining sooyoung dozing off in it again. their faces close, long lashes and pretty features just barely visible a centimeter or two away.

what a silly problem to have. so... frivolous, and fanciful, and probably a result of her not having dated since college. sooyoung herself has never even shown interest in the concept of a relationship, let alone fawned over any potential boyfriends.

or girlfriends. if seungwan was really, really lucky, potential girlfriends would have been in the picture. but she isn’t, so the picture instead remains mysteriously blank.

as well as they now know each other, sooyoung is still sometimes a bit of an enigma. thoroughly professional and aloof most times, but with a clear craving for connection, affection even. there’s an unquestionable fierce streak to her, yet in private, she seems easily cowed by unexpected happenings and the unexpected pressures of the office. docile, even, at least around seungwan.

seungwan can’t help but wonder how much further she has to go to figure sooyoung out. to be let in all the way.

or, how much further they might go together before it finally starts to happen.

  
  


nothing about their dynamic had been reason to worry at all. not at first.

her connection to park sooyoung had resulted not only in friendship, but in resounding success. it had been a proud day for her when sooyoung had been hired- and an equally happy day for sales team two, with a driven new member being just what they needed to ease the burden of overwork.

the thing is, when you’re in the position of mentoring someone, whether appointed officially or by your own self, you’re at least partly in charge of their future. it’s a serious responsibility, and can spawn a voracious curiosity, a wanting to know all sorts about the person under your wing. what they like and what they don’t, what they can do and what they can’t. life details, personal quirks. anything that adds to the mental picture of them you have to work with. 

funnily enough, the problem started showing when seungwan’s curiosity never stopped. in fact, it only seemed to get worse with more time. suddenly all the casual meals and conversations with sooyoung weren’t enough to appease it. seungwan would find herself embarrassingly eager to pick her junior’s brain over everything, from her personal struggles with work to the new roommate she started referring to with equal parts exasperation and fondness. 

in a way, it’s the very same excitement of getting to know a new friend. except you spend almost all of your time together in an environment balanced on two pillars: rigid formality and the human limits of exhaustion.

sooyoung is too busy now to innocently enable her like she normally does, entirely absorbed in her own work. from what seungwan can gather, a large part of it involves courting a food product distributor that the SM Group has found quite elusive in the past, cajoling them into shaking hands. for a rookie to try and achieve something in her first year that the more experienced at the company still haven’t managed- that takes planning. a lot of meticulous setup, and exhaustively contacting all the right sort of people.

seungwan hasn’t asked about it too much more, as much as she’d like to. she just has this horrible suspicion that at this moment, if she presses too much, tries too hard to close the slight distance between them, she might well overstep boundaries from affectionate senior to pushy and unwelcome. 

god forbid she become a _bother_ to sooyoung, of all people.

she’s been filling in the small void in her days through intense focus on other things. right now her lunch break happens to be top priority, and she’s making sure to enjoy every last moment of it as she makes her way back to the elevators, ambling through the halls of the lower floors at a leisurely, unhurried pace.

she savors the final bite of her convenience store kimbap as she passes by one of the sets of glass doors leading outside, eyes idly sliding over the courtyard visible through them.

a familiar face is sitting on a bench there, staring blankly at the pavement at her feet. her eyes are fixed on what seungwan knows to be green sprouting out defiantly from the worn, cracked cement. she’s looked down at that spot plenty of times herself.

as she stops, turning to push open the door, she can’t help a little smile to herself when she sees a plastic-packaged triangle sitting by sooyoung’s side, labeled with the same brand that she’s just finished munching on. they seem to rub off on each other often, in trivial ways like that.

one might even say they’re rather cute together.

“sooyoung-ssi,” she greets, good-spirited at the thought, but her face falls at the half-there nod she’s met with. “are you okay?”

“fine,” sooyoung answers shortly. “just thinking about some things.”

“mind if i sit?”

sooyoung nods without a word, putting aside her food to make room for her, and seungwan suddenly gets what the problem is all at once.

this is very clearly a case for _mentor mode._ or friend mode, maybe. that would be more accurate now.

“is it your project?” she murmurs, keeping her voice low and gently concerned. being inviting, that’s the key thing here. reminding her that she’s on her side. otherwise, she won’t get a peep out of her about what’s really going on.

sooyoung is just like that. if she hasn’t been backed completely and inescapably into a corner, help has to be accepted on her own terms. one hint of making yourself out to be the generous one looking down on her from above, and her to be the one in need, and she’ll easily start shutting down, insisting that everything is a-okay.

“among other things.” sooyoung huffs, looking frustrated at the fact that she’s even capable of being worried. “look, i know you’re busy enough as it is, it’s nothing i can’t handle. really.”

there’s the expected response. might as well have read it off a script.

thankfully, seungwan knows how to handle this situation. all she needs to offer is the right question, or invitation to talk, and sooyoung will open up. it wasn’t all that hard to figure it all out.

after all, when she was in sooyoung’s position, she was much the same way. still is now, sometimes.

“even if it is nothing...” she hesitates, choosing her words carefully. “you can still tell me.”

“well.” sooyoung makes a grab for her untouched kimbap. fiddles with the wrap that clings to it, digging her nails in, absently pressing the pads of her fingers into the smooth plastic. “it’s been almost a year that i’ve been here now, so i just keep having this... _fear_. that one wrong step and my progress is going to disappear.”

“mm.” 

“maybe it’s not even that much progress, but people have finally started taking me seriously enough for me to, like, prove myself. that’s the project. i _know_ that’s what the project is, even if nobody says it outright.”

it does seems she’s started caving a little quicker than expected.

“right- ”

“you know, nobody’s asked me to go run their errands for almost three weeks now,” sooyoung continues, the motion of her hands growing more frantic by the second, “i’ve been _counting_. no cigarettes, or having to pick up things that aren’t mine. and chae-bujang didn’t glare at me yesterday, and that’s the first time i’ve gone without a glare in our monthly division meetings since i’ve got here- you get it, right? you understand what i’m talking about?”

oh, does she ever.

“i get it.” seungwan simply nods, trying to be as unobtrusive as she can. “just think of that as... um, step one. on your way to success.”

“if that’s step one,” sooyoung questions, naturally, of course, “what comes next?”

“whenever you showed us bits of your project drafts, what did our teammates say?” seungwan probes. sooyoung pauses at that, frowning as she tries to recall.

“nothing really _that_ bad? things that i could improve, some points that i missed covering. and, um.” her face relaxes in pleased surprise. “actual constructive criticism, now that i think about it.”

“see? step two: actually getting acknowledged. without them picking at you,” seungwan adds. “you got there ‘cause they can only rag on you so much for a job well done. eventually that stops being an option for them at all.”

“what step are you on?”

“maybe, uh, step five? step six?” seungwan’s nose wrinkles as she realizes she’s talked herself in a bit of a circle. sooyoung has such a knack for messing her up. “i might not have thought the whole thing through so much,” she amends. “so let’s just say you’re doing well. because i’ve said this before, a lot, but i really think you’re doing a great job.”

“i guess it’s hard for me to tell.” sooyoung’s gaze remains averted, like she would rather not acknowledge that seungwan is hearing those words. “it’s weird saying that, because if i didn’t do good work i wouldn’t be here, obviously. i just wonder, though. i wonder a lot more now than i used to.”

“everyone wonders, sooyoung-ssi. i do, a lot. i don’t think that it ever really stops.”

“wasn’t exactly what i was hoping to hear.”

“people don’t always know what they’re doing, is all. even our division head has to wing it sometimes, because that’s just life.” seungwan shrugs. “but maybe we do wing it a little more than the people up top.”

“it sure feels like it.” sooyoung lets out a sigh. “i guess i just wish i could be a little more like you. knowing even people all the way up respect me, being able to be more confident in what i do…”

“i’m lucky, is what i am,” seungwan quickly corrects. “don’t think about it like that, alright? lee-sajang supporting my work was a fluke. there are probably tons more capable people just on our floor that he’s never heard out. and maybe he’ll never hear them out, because they’re thoughtful and smart, and don’t make big commotions with their bosses when he’s visiting.”

“now that’s just selling yourself short.” sooyoung tsks. “i know you’re supposed to be helping me, but sometimes it feels like i’ve got to cheer you on too, son-daerinim. i don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work.”

“eh...” seungwan scratches her head sheepishly. “i suppose i could always use a little support.”

“see, as long as you keep this up, i’ll always pay you back.” sooyoung gives her a smile, the kind where it’s clear it was hard to put it on her face, but she tried just for her anyway. “that’s a promise.”

“a promise.” seungwan chuckles, holding up a hand. “makes it sound like we’re kids. want to lock pinkies on it?”

“a-ah, we don’t have to.” sooyoung’s eyes flit over to her hand and away again. “i wasn’t asking for that. we’re _adults_ ,” she adds primly, as if to try and regain her composure. “we can trust each other on our word.”

“that’s right,” seungwan agrees. “adults.”

_grown and sensible people, who can admit things to each other when it matters._

she purses her lips to hold back a sigh as she watches sooyoung notice what time it is, scrambling to unwrap her food with an alarmed look on her face.

to think she even likes her like this. flustered and caught off guard, cheeks puffy with huge bites of her kimbap in an attempt to finish before work restarts at 1 pm.

“don’t eat so fast,” seungwan scolds, almost on instinct. “you’ll get a stomachache.”

“but- ”

“i’ll cover for you,” she continues, standing perhaps a little too abruptly, “if anyone ends up asking. okay? so don’t- don’t worry about anything, and just eat.”

juddering into motion again, she reaches out to give sooyoung’s shoulder a reassuring pat. manages to get in a second or two of contact before snatching her hand back uncertainly, and does a good job of not cursing herself out loud.

at least, not until she’s hurried back into the building, and out of earshot of anyone else.

  
  


it’s awfully cold outside today. the view outside the window seems just as uninviting. yesterday’s cloudy weather had quickly progressed into sullen snowfall, leaving the streets cold and slippery, and somehow looking even grimier than usual. probably the sight of the snow, ideally meant to be all clean and crisp, being marred by dark shoe prints and the occasional tire tracks.

how unfortunate that, this time of year, where she works isn’t much of a winter wonderland.

plodding through that on the way here had felt like some sort of sign- a hint of the kind of week she’s in for. but at least the office is warm, and seungwan’s schedule is all in order. she knows everything that’s coming up, has already made a decent dent in her unanswered emails, and is more than prepared for their early-morning meeting with risk assessment in half an hour.

she doesn’t realize that she’s been watching the clock until sooyoung comes in, looking more ruffled than usual. her eyes are a little wild, darting about to make sure none of their fellow officemates are taking too much notice of her arriving 10 minutes past ‘on time,’ which... they aren’t, really. it’s still business as usual, everyone hard at work at their desks and a few stray errand runners passing through their team’s section of the office.

“you’re a little late,” seungwan comments gently, hoping her curiosity she doesn’t come off as reproachful. sooyoung seems immediately thrown off by the elephant in the room being pointed out.

“sorry, just- i slept through my- ” 

her words fumble for a moment before stopping entirely, with a feeling that seungwan is familiar with. not wanting to let slip any excuse for people to think less of you. 

it would be very, very hard for sooyoung to get her to think less of her, but saying those exact words would probably be a step over the lines she’s been trying to box herself into for months. 

“it’s okay,” she says instead. “don’t worry about it.”

there’s the slightest bit of snow dusting sooyoung’s hair as she settles at her desk. it’s cute, gives her a little bit of a leftover holiday spirit vibe, and will probably conveniently melt away in the next minute or so. seungwan finds herself reaching out to pat it away anyway, leaning past the wall separating their cubicles to carefully brush off sooyoung’s head.

“there you go,” she murmurs, and a strange but familiar look appears on sooyoung’s face. half dazzled, half dutifully focused on her, like she, son seungwan, is the smartest and most important person in the room. neither of those things are necessarily true, considering they’re a couple of meters away from their team leader at the moment. but it sure is nice to feel appreciated.

especially nice to feel appreciated by park sooyoung.

“i submitted it.”

“hm?”

“my project proposal,” sooyoung confesses, casting her eyes around again like she’s telling an important secret. “i think this round of revisions really could be my last.”

a pause.

“i hope,” she amends, the corner of her mouth tilting up wryly.

seungwan feels herself smile back in turn, just the slightest bit too big. “that’s good,” she reassures. “you’ll be free soon, okay?”

a quiet _ding_ from her work computer catches her attention then, and she ends their conversation with an apologetic wave as she turns to attend to it. that sound usually means someone on another team’s got a favor to ask.

_You have one (1) new message from Kang Seulgi (Steel Team)!_

close enough.

seungwan takes a moment to make sure nobody is close enough to read her screen before opening up their messages. with any luck, it’s probably harmless work-only particulars that seulgi is sending over the office’s internal chat system, and not sensitive personal information.

_[8:12 am] Kang Seulgi: are you and sooyoung dating yet?_

but perhaps that was a little too much to ask of her.

_[8:12 am] Son Seungwan: no!!!!!_

_[8:12 am] Son Seungwan: they read these messages you know..._

_[8:13 am] Kang Seulgi: who??_

_[8:13 am] Kang Seulgi: oh it’s okay we both know nobody at headquarters really reads any of this_

_[8:13 am] Kang Seulgi: wan-ahhhhhhh you can tell meeeeee_

_[8:13 am] Son Seungwan: i said we aren’t dating!!_

_[8:14 am] Kang Seulgi: would people who aren’t dating engage in that sweet little head patting display i just witnessed!!_

seungwan frowns. draws back from her screen to peer over the top of her cubicle.

the steel team desks are around the corner from sales team two. with seulgi’s being on the edge, just barely visible from seungwan’s own desk, she has a tendency to hop on the messaging system and send seungwan accompanying dramatic looks from afar- usually with the unfortunate result of them both cracking up at their posts. 

but the coast seems oddly clear right now. there’s not a smiling, suspicious kang seulgi in sight. how worrying. maybe she had been one of the passersby around them, choosing to silently blend into the background to escape their notice...

“son-daerinim.”

seungwan scrambles to tab away from the chat window on her screen, jerking away from her desk to give her favorite coworker her best composed, mildly interested look. “y-yeah?”

“do you think they’re going to approve my work for real?” a familiar cloud of worry begins a well-worn pass over sooyoung’s face, her bottom lip jutting out in a soft, equally familiar pout. “i can’t stop thinking about it.”

this again. seungwan breathes an internal sigh of relief. sooyoung really is about as worried about her project as she herself was a few years ago. which is to say, probably far more than she should be.

“i’ve read over your drafts, haven’t i? and i gave them the go-ahead.” she raises an eyebrow, challenging sooyoung to find a reason to argue against her oh-so-important word. “i think all you need is a little patience.”

“heh…” sooyoung fidgets, abashed, as she rubs at the back of her neck. “maybe you’re right.”

there’s a bit of an awkwardness between them lately. a natural result of equally natural, unintended drifting.

for a while, the most they’ve really talked has been when she slipped sooyoung helpful references and contacts on and off, sending her reports with titles like _projected sales of cup ramen in thailand_. you know, just some fun light reading. but that’s about the furthest extent that she’s had to be involved, because honestly, it all seems to have wrapped up rather smoothly. no direct intervention needed.

no hotel rooms.

seungwan’s first hotel room crunch had happened about six months into being hired. with a big deadline hanging over the heads of the risk assessment team, joohyun had enlisted her and seulgi to fill in for a team member who was out sick. they had gone even knowing what it entailed- an exhausting and frenzied late night- because if joohyun decided she had to call in the favor they had owed her for guiding them as interns, it had to be serious business.

that was when seungwan had felt it, gotten her first taste of why people keep on coming back to this job and this company. the spark of energy that comes from knowing you’re part of a bigger, well-oiled machine. working alongside smart and capable peers on something you’re all damn good at, making it all come together under pressure.

somewhere on her phone, there still exists a photo of her and seulgi splayed over each other on a pristine hotel bed, business casual clothes wrinkled and faces slack in blissful, relieved unconsciousness. a testament to how good it feels when you’re done working hard.

she’s often entertained the thought of her and sooyoung sharing that feeling together someday. but then she thinks about having to share a bed with her again, and decides to put the idea on the shelf.

her work laptop chimes with another notification, a calendar reminder that their meeting with risk assessment is in 5 minutes, now.

she reaches out to brush her fingers against sooyoung’s arm, tap-tapping for her attention.

“you ready to go? our meeting’s soon.”

“uh huh.” 

seungwan looks up, past sooyoung’s shoulder and over to the glass walls of the nearby conference room. spots a familiar face already sitting at the head of the table, the picture of innocently awaiting their company.

it seems joohyun has taken it upon herself to be the risk team’s rep this morning.

“let’s be off, then,” seungwan mutters, and steels herself to spend the next half hour under her friend’s playful scrutiny.

  
  


everyone copes with office work differently. the most popular method is, of course, drinking alone. there’s also entirely excess amounts of partying at karaoke bars. or a combination of both, if you’re really going through something.

drinking with friends, now that’s a healthier alternative. seungwan much prefers it, and she knows her own friends do too, even if it usually means they only get to meet up every once in a while- when the stars align, their prayers are heard, the ritual sacrifices work, and they all actually manage to be free at the same time.

their main topic of conversation always seems to circle back to her love life, though. that had been very much a non-issue until recently. and then it never takes long before it ends up becoming less of a conversation, and more of a dogpile, because nothing seems to get her friends fired up like her probably unrequited crush.

it feels like they planned this. somehow schemed in advance that they would expertly herd her into a booth seat, pinned into a corner, free to be _leered_ at with all their bar snacks already summarily demolished.

“first of all, she basically swoons over you when she thinks nobody’s paying attention.”

“how do you know that?” seungwan protests. “unnie, you don’t even work on our floor.”

“i told her,” seulgi cuts in, amused.

“and i got an up close and personal view when we were at dinner last year,” joohyun points out. “you weren’t looking at that loving face, but i was. and i see her trying not to look at you in meetings.”

“this is getting a little weird,” seungwan mutters, still feeling her face pinch nervously at the word _loving._ yeah, right. not even she would call it a stretch to say sooyoung likes her, but _loving?_ that’s probably pushing it.

“can you look me in the eye and say that you haven’t thought about it? honestly.”

seungwan does not, in fact, look her friend in the eye. or say that she hasn’t thought about it.

“do we really have to talk about this?” she whines instead.

“well, the girl is clearly interested in you _somehow_ ,” joohyun argues. “probably in more ways than one. all _we’re_ trying to do is stop you from staring- from, uh. looking?” she holds up a hand, clearly in thought, before switching to equally impassioned english. “ _from looking a gift horse in the mouth!_ yes,” she mutters, clenching her fist proudly. “i finally got it right.”

“good job,” seungwan concedes grudgingly. it had taken a long time for joohyun to get that one down.

“see, if i can manage all your weird english figures of speech,” joohyun continues, voice rising in triumph, “you can manage, ya know, your feelings.”

“i just don’t know if it would really be appropriate- ”

“or maybe you’re just worried you’ve forgotten how to talk to girls,” seulgi offers this time, and though her bluntness is never unkind, her words still strike true. seungwan lets out an indignant scoff, shaking her head petulantly.

“you guys won’t even let me get a word in edgewise anymore. i’m seriously friends with a bunch of bullies.”

“prove me wrong, then.” seulgi leans back in her seat, arms crossing over her chest in teasing- no, _goading_ challenge. “it’s easy, isn’t it? you just have to follow up on all those moves you’ve been making.”

“what- what _moves?_ ” seungwan sputters. “i haven’t made any _moves_.”

it’s true. there have been no moves made to speak of. her and sooyoung simply get up to what the best of the best coworkers would. they have each other’s backs in the workplace, and don’t mind spending friendly time with each other, and go to movies and restaurants and little cafés alone together, just the two of them, and- 

and- gah.

seungwan gets a feeling that she’s standing at the foot of a growing tidal wave of defeat.

for the longest time, she hadn’t been sure she even had it in her for much feeling anymore. even simply existing just seems to give her too many other things to worry about. once she had gotten promoted, it felt like she could barely spare much energy at all for the friendships she already had.

but park sooyoung- park sooyoung makes her pulse race down to her fingertips for the first time in forever. makes her feel like she can run a marathon. or at the very least, finish all her work on time so they can hang out. sometimes it feels like the two are about the same in terms of difficulty.

this just isn’t fair. when she first started at the company, she committed to _work._ the job would have to come first, at least until she had properly clawed her way into a stable position. but here she is, a rather lowly deputy manager for the foreseeable future, and showing the whole damn checklist of symptoms of pining over a sweet, beautiful, all-around amazing girl.

even right now, at this very moment, here she is pining again.

“you’re thinking about her,” joohyun singsongs too loudly, cheeks already flushed a telling and tipsy pink. for all her quiet intensity in the workplace, she can get awfully raucous when she’s in a good mood. and nothing puts her in a good mood like poking fun at seungwan.

“just announce it to the world, why won’t you,” seungwan complains, shooting her a halfhearted scowl, but can’t quite keep her own laugh from making its way out of her.

“are you gonna do it then?” seulgi grins, part encouraging, part… concerning. “gonna be a little bold?”

“i’m sure that the idea of getting with someone two steps down from her actual boss will just rock her world,” seungwan says dryly. “i still don’t get why you two are so _pushy_ about this. you’re like the most single people i’ve ever met.”

“happily so,” joohyun pipes up. 

“i’m okay with it,” seulgi agrees. “at least for now.”

“and you value work the same way i do...” seungwan dithers. “i mean, it could be bad. we can all definitely see that, right?” 

“sure,” seulgi allows. the sharp teasing is absent from her voice now, replaced with a softer understanding. “but that doesn’t mean you can’t let yourself live life. besides.” she reaches out over the table to clasp seungwan’s hand in both her own. “it would make you really _happy_ ,” she says, pouting. “you’re always smiling around her. we just want to see you smile more, wan-ah.”

“huh,” seungwan mumbles to herself. “have i been that much of a drag?”

“kind of.” seulgi gives her hand one last reassuring squeeze before releasing her grip. “we all have, i think. the company won’t let us breathe lately.” 

“if i ever tried for this- ” seungwan hesitates. stays silent for a moment as planning starts to blossom in place of her former reluctance. “i would have to be really careful. if i messed something up...” she shivers. “jeez. it would really suck to lose out on her right now.”

“how romantic,” joohyun sighs idly. “i love young love.”

pursuing someone only because your friends think you should is inadvisable. it’s peer pressure, often at its least effective, and has the potential to end very, very badly.

but seungwan knows that if she really had no hope, if she truly was being assailed from all sides to do something she didn’t want to, she would have shut all of this down a very long time ago.

as a proactive and professional individual, she’s already laid out all the pros and cons of this in her mind. pros of dating park sooyoung: she would be dating park sooyoung. not much more to be said on the matter. cons of dating park sooyoung: probably everything related to the office. coworkers who aren’t nosy in endearing ways, only potentially career-ruining ones, and a host of stuffy older higher-ups who wouldn’t be very supportive. the thrill of it all could even affect her work, god forbid.

still, though. she would be dating park sooyoung. spending time with her, getting to satisfy all of her yearning curiosity and then some. who knows, they might even get a little bit scandalous. some hand holding might even end up on the agenda. or _more._ that’s a path she hasn’t allowed herself to walk down yet.

but try as she might, part of her, small but impossible to silence, is sure that even one of those silly little things would be very worth the risk.

  
  


another day goes by, same as all the others before it. sands of time slipping away in the hourglass that is life.

as much of the 14th floor packs up, the only light coming through the windows still belongs to the buildings outside. seungwan has always rather disliked the sun setting at such early hours. until she’s flooded her system with enough caffeine, the night time tends to make her permanent low-level exhaustion feel much more high-level. like suddenly there’s nothing more prominent in her mind than her heavy eyelids and sore limbs, and desperate longing to go home.

and yet she’s still been hanging around for several minutes longer than she should, blinking heavily against her dry and tired eyes. normally nothing other than immediate responsibility would keep her here at all, but these are special circumstances.

her usual companion on her way home is still glued to her own desk.

“youngho said his proposal got approved earlier today, but i checked mine around the same time and there was still nothing.” the wheels of sooyoung’s desk chair drag about the floor as she shifts, uneasy. “should i look one more time? it’s past finance team’s usual work hours...”

“can't hurt,” seungwan says with a shrug, pushing her glasses up her nose as she continues miming slow preparation to leave. it’s all to keep an eye on sooyoung, whose eyes are squeezed shut in anticipated disappointment as she types the page into her computer again.

seungwan continues to mess about with her things, shuffling her wallet around aimlessly between her fingers with her hands shoved in her bag, only to be interrupted by a squeak.

when she looks up, she’s met with the words it feels like they’ve _both_ been waiting on for ages.

“it’s approved!” 

sooyoung… deflates, for lack of a better word, all the nervous energy seeming to visibly drain out of her before seungwan’s very eyes. 

“it’s- oh, my god. it’s approved. i’m done.” her eyes grow round and wide, like the realization has finally sunken in properly. “i’m _done!_ ”

“see? you _see?_ ” seungwan jabs a finger in sooyoung’s direction in triumph, feeling herself swell with the satisfaction of being right. “i told you it’d be fine, didn’t i? this is why you should trust in me, sooyoung-ssi. i know from experience- ”

she would proudly huff and puff for a bit longer, if it weren’t for sooyoung pulling her into a tight and suddenly all too overwhelming hug.

keeping pride- and professionalism- on her mind is just hard when her face has been pulled into the warm crook of sooyoung’s neck, right in the middle of the office for anyone to walk past and see, even if the floor is close to empty already. even harder when she can breathe in the barely lingering scent of fabric softener on sooyoung’s blouse, and a soft whiff of her fruity shampoo.

sooyoung beams down at her once they separate, hands keeping a loose grasp on her shoulders, and graces her with the ever so rare breed of smile that looks like it takes up half of her face, squishes her eyes up into crescent moons. it feels like it’s been ages since something’s last managed to coax that smile out of her, and since seungwan has been at such a loss for words at the sight of just about anything.

she always does look so beautiful when she’s happy.

“you know, i really don’t think i could have done it without you.” 

“really?” a blush erupts on seungwan’s face, shoulders hunching under the pressure of her suddenly bursting feelings. “you’re always acting like i’m so essential, sooyoung-ssi.”

“i think you are,” sooyoung says, but she looks so earnest about it that seungwan guesses she might have taken the words the wrong way.

“you think i’m…?”

“i- ” sooyoung swallows, the gravity of her wording seeming to finally sink in. “i mean, i really don’t see any way your support wasn’t essential to my work...”

right. to her project. seungwan definitely knew that was what she meant. but even if it’s not _that_ kind of essential, it still matters. still makes her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

more often than not, she’s the type that takes things to heart. she’s learned by now that it’s easy for her to internalize what other people might say unthinkingly. that she’s mousy-looking, a workaholic, not much fun at parties. neurotic- that one had really lingered for a while, thanks to her rather frustrated partner for one of the SM Group intern activities.

she got hired and he didn’t, though. so getting a little _neurotic_ to save that particular sinking ship had been more than worth it in the end.

the negative has always been the fastest to sink in. the longest-lasting and hardest-hitting too. but sometimes, good things can also stick. 

sooyoung is really, really good at making them stick.

“will you walk with me after i get my things?” sooyoung asks, face sheepish as her hands finally drift back down to her sides. “i like the company.”

“of course,” seungwan agrees, relief edging into her voice at a sign of their usual routine appearing to break this all up. 

she keeps her back turned as she waits, listening to sooyoung gather up files and double-check she has everything she needs to bring home. 

surely if sooyoung were to look at her right now, she would see everything. seungwan’s silly heart worn plainly on her sleeve, her writing all on the wall. and what would things between them be like then, with it all out in the open so unexpectedly? 

seungwan takes a deep and grounding breath- slowly in, then quietly out. allows the familiar front of calm, of simple and unbothered composure, to slide over her like a second skin.

as they both turn, still red-faced, to make their way to the elevators, she fights back the itch to reach for sooyoung’s hand, hanging warm and almost waiting only a few centimeters away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me here! send me comments, feedback, anything you'd like:  
> [ [twitter](https://twitter.com/superheroau_twt) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/superheroau) ]


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back after an awfully long time! i hope it's worth the wait and i haven't gotten _too_ rusty. i come with a gift just in case: this adorable [comic](https://twitter.com/_jokbal/status/1273808239746887682). enjoy the chapter!

something about gift-giving has always felt like a trap. sooyoung knows full well the trap is usually quite innocent and well-meaning, and nothing bad tends to come of it, but still. 

a trap.

it’s the insidious snare of courtesy. receive a gift, and it’s only polite to give something back. but figuring out exactly what that something is… now that is a problem. and sooyoung will sometimes-  _ often _ \- get a little too entangled for her own good in such problems.

she’s had time to prepare, at least. seulgi’s birthday just recently passed, giving her some clue of what she should do as she observed the proceedings. all of seulgi’s steel team colleagues had offered her polite birthday wishes, because even grumpy old businessmen like kang seulgi, and she had later spotted seulgi happily unwrapping a small cupcake with a candle in it in the break room. probably had seungwan to thank for that one.

shortly afterwards, a cargo ship working with the steel team down in southeast asia decided to spring an unexpected leak. the whole team, seulgi included, had immediately leapt into frenzied, panicked action, leaving them all utterly drained by the time it was over. the workday hadn’t even ended yet.

thankfully, nothing had been reserved in advance for that day. there had been a belated birthday meal the next evening instead, where sooyoung had been seated right next to seungwan, trying desperately not to blush whenever their legs or arms came in contact. which happened entirely too many times, just for the record.

in the end, what she learned from all this was: trying to plan anything too special for an office birthday would be a big risk. the usual park sooyoung overthinking would almost certainly be useless in this situation.

so why not keep things simple instead?

when it had finally dawned on her, it had felt almost embarrassingly obvious. they’re all pragmatic people here in the office, herself included. useful gifts, especially ones that are useful on office time, or able to make said office time a little easier, would clearly be the most appreciated. 

lately, they’ve been talking about resting. not from the company, or anything in particular, but just… wanting to rest. the thin line between simply being drained and toppling into complete exhaustion has been thinner than ever. plus, nothing’s been making it worse like the involuntary night owl habits her manager complains about helplessly falling into on the daily.

it’s quite unfortunate, of course- but also a perfect chance for an easy and unsuspicious gift. that would also, conveniently, be difficult to take any romantic intent from unless you’re really, really thinking about it.

the process after that isn’t too complicated. sooyoung takes a weekend to dither around a few stores, trying to find something fitting that isn’t just some kind of herbal supplement. then she gives in and resorts to ordering her final decision online.

with a bottle of “natural herbal sleeping aids” thrown in anyway, just for good measure. and some lavender.

on the twenty-first of february, sooyoung arrives at the office early, before any of sales team two. shoves her presents under her desk, having placed them into a tacky birthday gift bag she convinced herself to buy just for this occasion, and hopes that seungwan doesn’t notice them on her way in.

she doesn’t, of course, because she’s too busy rubbing at her eyes instead as she walks past sooyoung’s cubicle to her own, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose as she greets her coworkers. one of those little motions of hers that makes sooyoung’s hand feel restless, itching to do it for her.

_ happy birthday _ s are exchanged without much ceremony. there’s a busy day ahead of them, and they’re all trying to save their energy. sooyoung settles for listening to the slight creak of seungwan’s desk chair as her manager gets comfortable, and prepares herself for an unproductive morning of fidgety anticipation.

this is the first time in a while sooyoung’s gotten someone a present not just because she’s close with them, but because she also wants to, well.  _ prove herself _ , for lack of any other way to say it. wants to show what she feels, what she can offer. that she cares in a way that’s different from everybody else.

it’s ridiculously nerve-wracking. all of a sudden, it feels like she’s never given an item to another person in her life.

her teammates were what sooyoung had worried most about the night before- she had been dreading their watchful gazes, how they seem to be unconsciously (or not so unconsciously) waiting for her to commit even the slightest error. they’ve been more vigilant, lately. it’s such a drain to put up with.

sooyoung would almost prefer playing the maid again.  _ almost. _

the moment of truth arrives soon enough. when seungwan gets up at one point in the afternoon, stifling a yawn as she says something vague about getting fresh air, mr. kim and mr. choi are thoroughly occupied, much to sooyoung’s surprise. absorbed in their paperwork for the hour, they don’t even look up when sooyoung edges her rolling chair away from her desk, cringing with every creak of polyester until she’s far enough away to make her escape.

her manager is allowed a few more seconds’ head start before sooyoung quietly snatches up her goodie bag, moving to trail covertly behind her.

as she passes the steel team desks on her way, she swears that she sees seulgi flashing her a wink. but when she turns around the woman in question seems to be the picture of productive, typing away as she fixes her screen with an almost comical squint-death glare combo.

sooyoung would be highly skeptical of that act, if it weren’t for her knowledge that sometimes seulgi just… reads things like that. even when she’s got her contacts in.

(they’ve been pushing the glasses agenda her way lately, but it doesn’t seem to be having much of an effect.)

sooyoung breathes a sigh of relief when seungwan ignores the elevators to move into the stairwell. she knows just where the other woman is going- down one floor, where one can turn down a few hallways to a little outdoor courtyard along one side of the building, overgrown with unattended ornamental plants. it’s just another one of her manager’s favorite little haunts, usually empty around this time of day.

sooyoung could swear she knows almost all of them at this point. it’s funny how close you can get to someone in a year’s time, provided you spend almost all your days with them.

she takes the stairs down to the 13th floor and trots out into the sunny spring afternoon, tapping seungwan’s shoulder to be met with a beaming and pleasantly surprised smile. the smile only grows when sooyoung holds up her goodie bag with a shy utterance of  _ happy birthday... again. _

“is this for me?” seungwan gasps, as if it’s utterly inconceivable that anyone would ever get her something for her birthday. “sooyoung-ssi! you’re so kind. thank you.”

she reaches into the bag and pulls out the main event immediately, eyeing it with grateful curiosity.

“it’s a padded sleep mask,” sooyoung explains, voice becoming a little hurried as seungwan starts to examine it more closely. “you don’t have to wear it every day, but on the times you really need it, you know- it should be some help. i hope,” she adds modestly.

“thank you,” seungwan says. “and these…” her eyes widen slightly as she peeks at the label on the supplement bottle next. “are something i actually haven’t seen yet. that’s a find!”

“has it been that bad lately? if you’ve tried that many things.” 

“mm, well. parents. you know how it is.” seungwan sighs, not unkindly. “my mom really wanted to help after i mentioned i wasn’t sleeping so well, but i don’t have the heart to tell her her suggestions haven’t been helping much so far… i’ll be trying these. you have some real sense, sooyoung-ssi.”

“thank you. i’m sorry that i didn’t have time for a card,” sooyoung murmurs, head ducking contritely. “but i don’t know if anything i wrote could compare to yours, anyway. i just hope it doesn’t feel too lacking.”

“nonsense,” seungwan dismisses. “it’s thoughtful and i’ll use it well. that’s what matters.” 

then she cracks a smile.

“guess i’ll have to step it up next time.”

sooyoung blinks.

“what?”

“you know, i’d actually been thinking of getting something for the anniversary of your hiring.” seungwan chuckles. “i had just been too busy, so i had to let it pass. i’m sure i’ll think of something later, though.”

oh, god. the cycle is starting again. the gift snake is about to start eating its own tail.

okay, okay. sooyoung loves seungwan- and will have to do some unpacking later about just how  _ easy _ it was for that thought to pop into her head- but surely, she ought to be able to put her own feelings out in the open with her too.

like, a constant streak of gift-giving is just not going to be sustainable. both in a practical sense, in that there’s only so much sooyoung can do, money-wise, but also in an... emotional damages sense. 

“son-daerinim. can i ask you something?”

seungwan looks up at her, nonplussed. “sure.”

“we’re friends, right? the two of us.”

“uh, yeah?” she seems startled at the very implication that they might not be. “what’s the matter?”

“because you don’t have to do that,” sooyoung tries to explain, voice halting as she tries to pad her reflexive bluntness with professional courtesy. “i’m really thankful, of course. always. but you’re not superman or anything, you’re just a person. and i know that you’re a person, i know you’re my friend, so i’m not going to be hurt if you can’t always do things for me. or give me things.”

“ah.”

“it’s, um- i feel pressured, when i get gifts, because i always feel like i’m supposed to return the favor, and sometimes it makes me really… stressed out...”

it doesn’t sink in quite how  _ directly _ she’s talking, and just how badly her words could be taken, until it’s all said and done. by the time sooyoung’s nerves properly hit, it’s already too late.

“that’s not to say you’re stressing me  _ that _ much,” she adds hurriedly, moving for a little damage control, “i’m not trying to make you feel bad, i promise- ”

“it’s fine,” is how seungwan stops her. the tone of those two words is alarmingly difficult to read, but, oddly, her lips twitch in the beginnings of a smile.

sooyoung knows seungwan’s many minutely different smiles by now, can file them into their own little categories like every case file stuffed in sales team two’s shelves and drawers. she prepares herself for one of the reluctant sort of grimaces now. 

essentially, as she’s grown used to doing at work, she expects nothing less than the worst.

but this smile doesn’t look forced. it doesn’t even look all that tense. only sheepish. and a bit affectionate, in that way that sooyoung could swear has only ever been just for her.

“thank you for telling me, sooyoung-ssi. like, now that i think about it, i was a little burdensome there, wasn’t i?” seungwan makes a face. “that can be my style sometimes.”

“well...” sooyoung falters. “not  _ burdensome. _ that sounds a little much.”

“i don’t think it is. but, ah, that isn’t a bad thing. really. i already knew i could be that way sometimes.” seungwan grabs a hold of her upper arm, giving her a steadying squeeze before she can launch into another round of gushing backpedaling. “and now i know better, yeah? even if it, um, stung a little. so i’ll try not to pressure you. i’m sorry.”

“you don’t have to say that, though… i guess i just think, the best gift for me would be to see you look out for yourself a little more.” sooyoung hesitates. “take your own advice sometimes, you know.”

“it’s cute when you act all worried for me.”

“c-cute…” sooyoung clenches her fingers into a fist, just for a moment. long enough to stop them from coming up to the back of her neck, which is getting warmer by the second. “well,” she agrees reluctantly, “i guess i try.”

“you do,” seungwan says, amused.

“i hope i didn’t sound too disrespectful,” sooyoung repeats weakly. “i’m sorry if it was out of line.”

“eh, we’ve known each other too long for that, park sooyoung-ssi. my energy’s not so high right now, so i’m only half processing all of this anyway.” seungwan’s eyes crinkle warmly, weary but genuine in their goodwill. “don’t fret over it too much.”

“there’s lavender oil at the bottom of the bag,” sooyoung adds. “you can try dabbing a little on your face as a last resort, if all else fails. under the nose usually works for me.”

“you’ve done more than enough, sooyoung-ssi,” seungwan soothes once more. “no need to freak out any longer.” 

sooyoung giggles at that, and it’s mostly out of embarrassment, but the tension drains from her shoulders anyway.

“you always make it sound like i’m so obvious,” she mumbles.

seungwan doesn’t try to answer the unspoken question. the corner of her mouth just twitches up in something that could be a smirk.

“we should be getting back now, shouldn’t we.”

sooyoung blinks. now that she mentions it, they sure have been absent from their desks a while.

“yes ma’am,” she says dutifully, a warm, relieved satisfaction suffusing her as she falls in step behind seungwan. 

all the while, even as she follows her quietly up the stairwell, her eyes won’t stop wandering to the gaudy pink gift bag swinging merrily from her manager’s hand.

  
  


dinner is the next day, kept a small and simple affair at a place that happens to serve an excellent budaejjigae- and sits far enough away from the office to feel safe from coworkers. with all the niceties and  _ happy birthday! _ - _ thank you! _ exchanges with office acquaintances done, seungwan visibly unwinds in the presence of her circle. other than sooyoung, seulgi and joohyun are the only other people in attendance.

sooyoung’s made it that far. she’s  _ inner circle _ material. it’s almost enough to get her to tear up, really.

“get her to stop making those eyes at me,” joohyun orders, making a shooing gesture in seungwan’s direction with her hand. sooyoung brings her attention back to the real world and meets the demand with blank confusion.

“sorry, what?”

“it’s her  _ devious _ look.” joohyun laughs, in a way that says that the devious look is nothing new, but gives off a teasing resentment towards her friend for it all the same. “son-daeri is cruising for a favor from me. or from you,” she adds. her voice lowers, and yet she somehow manages to whisper even louder than she was already talking. “she’s wondering if one of us will foot her bill.”

“ah, is that… what this is about?”

“i know. you totally wouldn’t expect it from her.” joohyun narrows her eyes. “but she’s a tricky one, son seungwan. loves being spoiled more than she lets on.”

a year ago, sooyoung would have been horribly nervous being put on the spot like that, even for a moment. but these are her friends, now. her people. so she knows that harmless bickering is just part of their way of life, and it’s only ever that- harmless. 

“well, i, um, l-like her and all,” sooyoung continues, stumbling over the word that’s still scary to say in front of seungwan, even now, “but i’ve got to look out for myself. i still don’t get salary negotiations yet.”

“it’s fine. we actually do this a lot. with how busy we are, it’s usually the closest thing to a fancy present any of us have time for, so it’s like our tradition, bouncing the bill around.” her manager laughs, a slight rasp to the sound that makes sooyoung’s pulse stutter briefly. “i wouldn’t really put that on you anyway. there’s only so much we can make a newbie do for us…  _ bae-daeri _ over here just likes airing out my little bad habits sometimes.”

“you’re right,” seulgi agrees. “about the newbie thing. we should set a good example as kind seniors.”

“i love when we’re all on the same page!” seungwan points at seulgi triumphantly. “you, kang seulgi-ssi, can set a good example and treat me. because i’m the birthday girl, and you owe the universe a debt of one meal anyway, ‘cause i saw steel team leader paid for  _ your _ birthday dinner two weeks ago.”

“ah,” seulgi groans. “how did you- ” she slaps at the table with a hand. “aish. you ambushing me into this again like last year… just one wrong move in front of you is all it takes, seriously.”

“but you’re going to do it,” seungwan persists, grinning. “right? my best friend? my favorite old-timer?”

“hey,” joohyun objects, “i’m your favorite too, aren’t i,” just as sooyoung makes her own mumbled, skeptical sound. seungwan cheerfully waves off the disapproval coming at her from all directions.

“i like all of you a lot, okay? no hurt feelings please.” she bobs her head in joohyun’s direction. “you’re always pitching in for meals anyway. i’m just giving you a break. this is altruistic, to be honest.”

“i’ll let you off this time.” joohyun chuckles. “but i think sooyoung-ssi might take a little offense to not being your favorite.”

sooyoung lets out a huff, resisting the urge to cross her arms like a petulant child. with seungwan so close by, struggling to explain herself if she got caught being too sulky would be very painful indeed.

that’s another thing- seungwan always sits next to her. whether they’re in a crowded local bar or settled five minutes early in a still-empty conference room, she’s there. or maybe sooyoung is the one who’s drifting unconsciously to her side. either way, they’ve grown used to being right alongside each other almost everywhere they have to be.

sooyoung can’t help but wonder if it’s a bit much. everyone should be able to cope with a little time apart, after all, no matter who it’s with. but sometimes, being with seungwan can verge on intoxicating. the rush of warmth to sooyoung’s cheeks, the little startles she has to hold back whenever her manager brushes against her. when a hand just barely misses settling right against her thigh. 

ridiculous, potent flutters of something hard to name. 

of course she’d miss that whenever it’s not around.

their shoulders knock together as seungwan leans back to make way for the large pot of budaejjigae placed in the center of the table. her manager insists on filling both their bowls with red-orange stew herself as the smaller side dishes are laid out, letting seulgi fend for the side of the table where her and joohyun are sitting. 

sooyoung flusters when she notices seungwan frowning with slight concentration, fishing around in the broth for a few more pieces of spam before dropping them into sooyoung’s bowl with a satisfied huff. it’s probably just the heat of steaming food being directly in her face making everything so warm, though. she’ll stick with that for now.

joohyun gives her this look as they both sit back and fondly let their friends do the work. it isn’t all that uncomfortable, really, but something about her gaze is too knowing. too understanding. especially as her perfectly innocent eyes take in how sooyoung and seungwan are bunched together across from her, so easily taking up each others’ space.

now, sooyoung doesn’t entirely mean to do it. but the relaxed aura of their surroundings has given her the rare luxury of worrying less about what other people think, so her face pinches as she meets joohyun’s gaze, questioning the attention with a defiance she’s usually too frozen with courtesy to show.

unfortunately, the unspoken  _ what are you looking at? _ just earns her an entirely too  _ encouraging _ raise of the woman’s very expressive eyebrows.

  
  


the apartment has been comfortably quiet this saturday evening. the lull has been interrupted only by the ring of the doorbell for delivery, and the rustle and squeak of plastic as the night’s comfort food was laid out, hot and ready.

and then the blaring of the television being turned on.

sometimes, they try to have TV nights on weekends. just the two of them, park sooyoung and kim yerim, plus some snack food and netflix. because even though they live in the same apartment, it’s startling how little they’ve actually been  _ seeing _ each other recently, between sooyoung’s yoyo-ing work hours and yerim’s late nights (and equally late mornings). 

a new episode of the hottest recent drama is playing out on the screen in front of them now, the protagonist bruised and bloody, fresh out of a fight scene. they both chew intently on their tteokbokki as he groans, letting the pretty love interest-slash-sidekick patch him up.

“i’m not feeling their relationship that much,” sooyoung comments idly, and earns a pair of narrowed eyes.

“i don’t think it’s all that bad,” yerim counters, in the sort of tone that playfully challenges  _ wanna argue? _ , and sooyoung rolls her eyes and decides to take the bait.

“well, to me, there’s no, um.” sooyoung’s face scrunches up while she considers her words. “no charge to it. it’s wooden.” her eyes flit back to the scene on the screen. the guy’s looking at the girl, now, trying his best to seem captivated. and sure, she’ll give him props for trying, but it just doesn’t feel the  _ same- _

“the same as what?” yerim questions, and sooyoung realizes she’s talking without thinking again. got to stop doing that.

“as…” sooyoung feels her cheeks redden. “well, the same as when i’m looking at- ”

“oh, god- ”

“- at my work unnie, okay, there, i said it- ”

“it’s always  _ her _ with you!” her best friend scoffs, the fight over drama lead chemistry dropped in an instant. “and i can never win against her, either. totally not fair.”

“love’s not fair, yerim-ah,” sooyoung sighs dramatically in return. “that’s just how things are.”

“oh, so it’s really become love now.” a smaller hand grabs a hold of hers, and sooyoung shakes her head fondly as yerim jostles their joined hands around with teasing urgency. “sooyoung unnie’s in  _ loooove _ ,” yerim drawls, letting her hand drop as sooyoung pulls away.

“i don’t know,” sooyoung remarks, drawing back to examine her own nails intently. the picture of thoughtful and unbothered, despite the fluttering in her being much the opposite. “i guess there isn’t really a better word. it’s nice to have feelings, though. for another person.”

“isn’t it?”

“yeah. like… it makes me feel more like a human again.” sooyoung snorts. “isn’t that a little sad? it only took me a year to become an office zombie.”

“you’re still alive last time i checked,” yerim counters. “you know, you really make me want to meet her properly. we should go on a double date, or whatever it is. sometime soon. i’ve never tried one of those before.”

sooyoung makes a skeptical sound at the implication. like she’s ever going to end up on a  _ date _ with son seungwan in her lifetime. “in a decade, maybe. but i’m sure that’ll be enough time for you to prepare to judge her in person.”

“that’s not what i was going for. i’m grown up now, you know. i’m not so nasty anymore.” yerim’s eyes remain pointed at the screen, seeming not to care too much, but her tone is clearly unimpressed. “i’ll forgive you for forgetting about my heart of gold this once, unnie, but you won’t escape so easy next time.”

“sorry,” sooyoung mumbles, abashed. she can’t deny that was quite a good point.

“anyway, it’s ‘cause she makes you happy. really happy. i see it all over your face.” yerim sighs with what sounds like fondness, or possibly mild disgust. with her, the two can often mean the same thing. “it’s cute,” she adds. “i think it’s nice seeing you like that.”

“really?”

“yeah. it makes me think to myself, do i look that stupid all the time too?”

well, so much for not being mean. but, sooyoung supposes, it isn’t that mean at all. yerim’s just being honest. lord knows she’s looked plenty stupid around seungwan in the office, and that’s on  _ good _ days.

she shudders to imagine the state of things when she’s not on top of her game.

“you might be right, actually,” she agrees, deliberately shifting the conversation away from herself, “i think you look just the same,” and laughs at the shove to her shoulder that comes in response. “hey! you were asking for it.”

“maybe i was.” yerim leans forward to snatch up her chopsticks and another sauce-soaked rice cake. “i should ask yuleum unnie about that. just to double check.”

“what if she agrees?” sooyoung teases. “you’re not gonna be mad at her too, are you? hey- ” she motions at a few fresh drops of red-orange sauce on the table. “you spilled a bit.”

“uh-uh. why would i?” yerim grins, even as she unobtrusively swipes the mess up with a crumpled paper napkin. “she’d just be  _ communicating _ . ‘cause i’m talking to a nice girl who cares about our relationship, y’know.”

though she has yet to meet her, sooyoung has still managed to learn a little bit about yerim’s mysterious unnie. one: her name is lee yuleum. two: she’s three years older than yerim- that had warranted an interested eyebrow raise, but nothing more. yerim has always had a knack for mingling with people regardless of age. something about her maturity just makes it come easy to her.

there’s one final thing, of course: yerim likes her very much.

that last bit is obviously the most important one.

it’s weird being in this position. namely, being the one who’s still figuring things out, while yerim is the one with the burgeoning relationship and promising girlfriend. things were perfectly fine when they were both alone together, but now it’s a little different. sooyoung remains older, “more experienced” with life. that definitely hasn’t changed. yet yerim is the one who seems to have what sooyoung seeks out for herself.

is she jealous? sure. just a little bit. but when they were younger, they made a very solemn teenage vow that romance would never get between them, so get between them it will not. sooyoung knows she’s grown enough to make sure of that.

no matter how frustrated she’s starting to feel at her own lack of forward motion.

  
  


when it comes to her own little must-dos, sooyoung has long since learned that for just about anything, there is almost always a list. what she had to finish for her first year project, what she has to do every day. what she wants to get done in a new year. everything is bullet points, broken-down tasks to throw herself into. it’s comforting, in a way- each goal in its own place, ordered just so.

you can’t make love into a list though, can you. matters of the heart don’t come prepared in steps, or easy-assembly bits and pieces.

that makes son seungwan a bit of a mystery to sooyoung’s approach to life. what she wants is a strategy of a sort, something that will give her a feeling of  _ safety _ , at least, but she draws nothing but blanks when she’s around her manager. when one of those smiles is pointed her way, or a soft gaze leveled with her, it’s all she can do to get her words to come out right, let alone push along a master plan.

she certainly won’t try to outright seduce her, or anything. that would have potential to… make things weird. plus, sooyoung is pretty sure she’s lost her touch since morphing into a diligent model student by the end of her second year of college, so that won’t be a risk she’ll be taking at work, of all places.

does that mean she can’t sneak a few light and  _ not  _ creepy touches in, or spend a few seconds too long standing close to her? certainly not. but self-discipline is also the foundation of all good things. everything has to be in safe, sane moderation.

_ so your plan is just to act like a normal person _ , is what yerim had pointed out when she’d explained her dilemma, and maybe it is, which would mean sooyoung is the weird person in this situation.

maybe.

but things have felt like they’re solidifying, becoming something that’s actually possible- that could even end up real somewhere along the way. sooyoung has been wondering, lately, if it’s wishful thinking to imagine she’s now getting there. a few steps away from a turning point. 

right now, she’s back on the SM building roof for the first time in months, and everything feels just right. clouds roll past the sun just enough to keep things pleasantly warm, and seungwan is here, next to her. enjoying it all. she hadn’t even asked her manager to keep her company this time. she’d just followed along behind sooyoung after a mention of the roof, cheerfully nonchalant.

now that they’re this close together, sooyoung has to stare. of course she does. it’s rare to get such an opportunity when they’re both stuck in the office, so surrounded by easily drawn eyes and attention, and usually walled off by gray cubicles. 

“sooyoung-ssi.”

“yeah?”

“i still get a little nervous when you look at me that way.”

“who, me?” sooyoung rears back a little, feeling herself helplessly go on the defensive. “i, i wasn’t. was i?”

seungwan regards her with gentle amusement. “i’m not scolding you. using your eyes isn’t against company policy.”

“thank goodness for that,” sooyoung huffs. “maybe i’d have to file a report on you too.”

she freezes for a moment, a knee-jerk reaction after realizing what she’s just said. threatening superiors with legal action is rather inadvisable, good friendship aside. but...

“maybe you’ve got me there. people have said i get a little glitter in my eyes sometimes.” seungwan only giggles to herself, absently tucking short hair behind her ear in a familiar, bashful gesture. sooyoung watches her with a stupid and slightly relieved smile on her face. she can’t help but delight in these moments, when she gets to see her manager be a little girly, a little shy. 

after all, there’s still- well, there’s still a  _ woman _ there, even under the suits and stony resolve. a very pretty, very smart woman. that sooyoung occasionally thinks about holding as she falls asleep at night. or… other things. also as she falls asleep at night.

(yes, she’s still very sure she has everything perfectly under control.)

it feels like nowadays they’re always sent off on some joint assignment or other from their team leader, or that seungwan will catch her alone in the office, seemingly by chance. too many times that they’re faced with each other, with nothing standing in sooyoung’s way but her own hesitation.

“are things okay with you? here at work?” 

always with the questions. so gentle in their probing, yet so damn hard for sooyoung to try and wriggle her way out of.

“everything’s fine.” she shifts self-consciously. “why, does it seem like something’s wrong?”

“i guess  _ wrong _ might be a strong word. you just seem… preoccupied?” seungwan tries, hazarding a guess. “at least, that’s kind of how it looks to me.”

she’s right about that. but what sooyoung is so preoccupied with, she probably shouldn’t find out about. yet.

“i am pretty busy. in a normal way, though. like we always are.”

“yeah… i’ve seen you staring into space a lot.”

“bad habit,” sooyoung agrees weakly. “i’ve been getting more distracted lately.”

“i understand. it’s easier to fall into that when you’re all worn out like we are.” seungwan seems satisfied by the answer, although curiosity still lingers around her as she turns her gaze back towards their view of the city. “the guys have just been coming down on you a little harder lately, is all. wanted to see if there was anything i could do.”

ah. of course she’d noticed that. sooyoung had figured it would come up at some point- the increase in sharp verbal prods coming her way, all the reminders to stay focused, so reminiscent of when she was freshly hired. when people still hadn’t grudgingly accepted that she could handle herself.

even with things being different now, the feeling of lost progress still stings, just a little. but surely... surely it won’t last forever.

she won’t let it last forever.

“i can manage,” she finally answers, voice delicate. “thank you, though.”

“i believe you. just- you know who you can count on to smack a little sense into you, if you ever need it.”

_ you _ , sooyoung doesn’t say.  _ i can always count on you. _

she trusts in seungwan. that’s what lies at the heart of all this. she doesn’t just trust seungwan to help her out, but to tell her what she needs to hear, not just what she wants to. and would trust her with her heart, if it really came down to it.

perhaps most shocking of all, it feels like that is entirely the right decision to have made. no second guesses, no underlying wondering of when things will break down. 

just a simple and steady assurance that someone’s going to have her back.

  
  


the weeks eventually manage to drag their way into yet another friday night. and to the surprise of nobody, especially not herself, sooyoung yet again finds herself somewhere she doesn’t want to be. the SM building, this time. because she’d much rather be setting off for her apartment now than overstaying here for too long.

the space around her is lit only by grimy lights set into weathered concrete, reflecting off the fading painted lines of parking stalls. meanwhile, sooyoung knows the street not too far away is darkened, but still bustling with those that she envies right now- those who get to go on their way home.

“you’re still too nice,” sooyoung mutters to herself, adjusting her bag where it hangs on her shoulder. “be selfish for once, park sooyoung, be  _ selfish. _ ”

she had just been on her way out when there had been a tugging on her shoulder, and her fellow rookie dongyoung had been there when she’d turned around, looking as frenzied as his gesture had felt. he had pressed the key to a company vehicle into her hands, and hurriedly asked for a “small” favor.

the problem with this was, he had been heading the opposite way from her- for the elevators that lead deeper  _ into _ the building, rather than for the lobby doors. now he’s lost completely to the clutches of a meeting, which means sooyoung’s left with no choice but to help him out a little in his time of need. it’s the polite thing to do, after all.

that’s how she’s ended up here, in the underground parking garage that serves as the SM building’s basement, staring down what looks like a patchwork quilt- if it were in pieces, rather than sewed up to completion. there are about six or seven large pieces of cloth sitting in the trunk, differently colored and textured, and folded into thick but neat squares.

the mystery items are fabric samples, meant to be toted up to the textile division offices to prepare for some kind of important client tomorrow. because of course she had unknowingly agreed to physical labor, on top of getting home later than planned.

commuting, even if it seems simple, is always a cascade. be late to one tiny part of it, and the whole thing is thrown off. leave the office a minute later than planned, get held up at a crosswalk that would have offered you an instant walk signal one minute earlier, miss your train, end up waiting an extra 20 minutes… sooyoung can already picture the dominoes of inconvenience beginning to fall, her precious little free time at home being eaten up.

tch. she should hurry up here first before worrying about all of that.

experimentally, sooyoung grabs a corner of one of the fabric samples and tries lifting. it’s much lighter than she had anticipated, sort of like lifting a folded-up blanket, so- alright. this isn’t so bad. she could even take it all upstairs in one trip if she’s smart about it, which means she won’t have to harass dongyoung to remember that he owes her for this.

(she might do it anyway, though. just for fun.)

“sooyoung-ssi!”

sooyoung startles. turns around to meet the familiar voice. “son-daerinim,” she utters, surprised. “what brings you down here? you don’t drive home.”

seungwan is still in full work outfit despite the time, a neat charcoal pantsuit that, when combined with the gleaming smile on her face, makes sooyoung feel a little weak at the knees.

“eh, it’s nothing,” her manager dismisses. “just have to take choi-gwajang onsite, help bring some old files there, boring stuff. but after i play driver, i get to go home! what about you, though? i thought you clocked out…” 

a telltale frown starts to creep its way onto her face once she notices what sooyoung’s preparing to lug around.

“don’t tell me someone’s making you do heavy lifting,” she starts, but sooyoung is quick to wave aside the concern with her own sheepish laugh.

“ah, it’s nothing for me either. i just ran into dongyoung on my way out- you know, kim dongyoung from the textile team- and he asked me for a favor…”

seungwan nods and backs down at that, obviously remembering how the two of them had been friends back during the internships. “that’s kind of you,” she allows, an approving note to her voice as she makes her way over to sooyoung’s side. “do you need any help with these? they look a little bulky.”

“that’s okay. they’re really light, and you’ve got places to go.”

“oh, sure.” seungwan seems to fluster for a second, as if she’s just remembered their conversation about her not having to do everything. “i’m early, though, ‘cause choi-gwajang told me to be ready by the time he wrapped up. and, you know, a friend in need…”

they lean in to reach for the same sample then, hands brushing, paths intersecting. “it’s fine,” sooyoung repeats, turning her head to shoot her manager her best reassuring smile, but- 

their faces are much closer than she had expected. 

her train of thought derails immediately, crashing and burning its way to a screeching halt. everything else seems to follow suit, as if time has decided to freeze around the two of them.

in that long, dragged-out moment, seconds crawling into what feels like a whole agonizing minute of suspense, she can see almost in slow motion how seungwan’s eyes drift down to her mouth.

distantly, there is a feeling that this just isn’t right. in sooyoung’s head, there was always supposed to be something she could  _ navigate. _ a confession in progress, a buildup to a moment. a lucky day where they’re both finally in the right place at the right time, and sooyoung is brave enough to take things further.

not the moment ambushing her, leaving her with no choice but to let it happen.

sooyoung doesn’t even realize she’s moving closer until their noses are almost bumping, and by then it’s too late. something happens. maybe seungwan shifts just so, or sooyoung is actually the one who closes the last of the gap between them. 

no matter what it is, they’re kissing.

her. and son seungwan.

_ kissing. _

seungwan’s lips are soft and warm, and the brief taste of her is wonderfully ordinary- lipstick and hints of the instant coffee stocked in every break room in the building. against her better instincts, sooyoung responds in kind, a choked, embarrassing sound slipping out of her when seungwan tilts her head and deepens the kiss, parts her lips for a delicious, thrilling second. 

but only for a second. 

loud, trudging footsteps from the direction of the elevators reach both of their ears, and they both leap apart as if burned.

sooyoung hopes that she hid her hands behind her back quick enough to look natural as a higher-up she recognizes passes by. he leads one of the resource teams that she doesn’t really interact with much, but she’s still memorized his name out of the same obligation that has her straightening, smoothing out her shirt-

“ahn-gwajangnim,” she greets with reflexive courtesy, hearing seungwan’s voice echo alongside her, and a jovial wave is sent back their way in response as he strides off to his car.

whatever the moment between them was, it seems that it wants to leave with him.

“i suppose i’ll be off, then,” seungwan finally says, once his car’s pulled out and away into the street outside. because they actually just spent  _ that _ long wordlessly staring at each other. sooyoung bobs her head in disconcerted agreement, still at a loss for words.

yet, unbidden, she finds herself taking a step closer. 

then another. 

seungwan doesn’t move, doesn’t stop her, not even when they’re a hair’s breadth away from each other, just barely brushing in every place.

rather than acting, sooyoung thinks, for that moment, about the time that they don’t have. not the fabric samples waiting on her to take them upstairs, or what she’ll do at home tonight. just the idea of seungwan’s hand on her face, the thought of her warm, light weight pushing sooyoung into the edge of the open trunk until it digs into the backs of her thighs.

except they  _ can’t _ , can they. none of that should happen. not here, not right now.

“wait,” she utters mindlessly, a stray thought shattering her daydream, “they- they have CCTV here,” and then someone’s phone starts going off, no, it’s seungwan’s. definitely seungwan’s. sooyoung can feel the vibrations in her manager’s pocket.

they’re that close.

“shit,” seungwan mumbles. the curse is a rather foreign sound from her otherwise wholly professional mouth. “shit, you’re right- hold on.” she gives sooyoung a helpless look, evidently trapped between a rock and a… painful place. work being the place. “we have got to talk about this later.”

sooyoung nods, slack-jawed. her fingertips brush against her parted lips for a moment, as if trying to feel for the last dissolving traces of their kiss.

“we  _ will _ ,” seungwan corrects herself, her gaze at sooyoung unbroken even through the muffled buzz of her phone between them. “we’ll talk. but right now- ”

“do what you have to do,” sooyoung interrupts. against all the company work ethic drilled into her, she suddenly feels rather reluctant to act the responsible one. “son-daerinim,” she adds belatedly. “i know what choi-gwajang is like. it’s fine. i get it.”

that gets her a nod, at least. but seungwan still has this  _ searching _ feeling lying just behind her eyes. something nervous.

and even a little bit hopeful, sooyoung might dare to say.

“you trust me, right?” her manager says, just as her phone finally goes quiet, and sooyoung blinks, suddenly conscious of everything down to the nervous flutter of her own lashes.

_ do i trust…? _

“of course,” she answers, her voice truthful. and far steadier than she expects. “why wouldn’t i?”

“then you know.” seungwan clears her throat. “i mean, i don’t mess around when it comes to this stuff. ever.”

“right,” sooyoung agrees blandly. “i, i knew that. work comes first.”

“sooyoung-ah.”

the way seungwan says her name is barely any different from the usual, but it lands like a shock to the system. sooyoung sucks in a breath at the feeling, steeling herself for the impact of whatever might be to come.

“w-what...”

the  _ ding _ of the elevator is so loud in the quiet parking lot. it breaks through the static of uncertain nerves that’s begun to fill sooyoung’s senses, until it feels like it’s pealing around them, the cheerful little noise becoming something almost mocking.

mr. choi has made it down to the basement.

“i’ve got to go,” seungwan sighs, voice resigned as she draws back. 

and just in time, too. sooyoung had been only seconds away from giving up and furiously making out with her manager in full public view. maybe it’s actually a relief that their team leader has terrible timing.

seungwan’s fingers brush her wrist as she passes, lingering a second too long before she smoothly joins mr. choi on his path to a company car somewhere deeper in the parking lot. his expression is stormy, a very appropriate reaction to being prevented from clocking out as early as possible, but it begins to ease up with a typically  _ son seungwan  _ assurance that she’ll do her best to make it all go smoothly. 

that gets a slight smile to flit across sooyoung’s face, at least for a second.

“see you next week,” she says after the two of them, voice faint.

then, as her superiors both vanish around a corner, out of view, the gravity of what’s just happened hits like an anvil straight to her head.

that had been her shot at being straightforward. at getting herself together and confessing like the damn grown woman that she is. but now things are out of her hands, aren’t they? her fate might as well be up to pure luck. a cosmic game of  _ she likes me, she likes me not. _

all she can do now is keep believing in who she’s set her heart on.

somewhere in the middle of dread’s frigid grip taking hold of her, sooyoung remembers why she’s even here in the first place- to do another friend a favor. she turns, ready to busy herself with it to distract from her thoughts, and promptly smacks her forehead into part of the open trunk door. 

as she recoils, eyes watering ever so slightly, her face falls into a frown.

“maybe i deserved that,” she mutters, and begins gathering up the fabric samples in front of her with hands she can’t quite stop from shaking.

as for whether they should be trembling with fear or excitement, or a mix of the two, well.

she’ll just have to find out after the weekend passes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)  
> [ [twitter](https://twitter.com/superheroau_twt) | [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.me/superheroau) ]


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